Mercedes Is Officially Bringing Back The Convertible G-Wagen
Mercedes’ luxe brute is going topless for the first time in a generation.
After seven years of production, the second-gen Mercedes-Benz G-Class is finally dropping its top. The German marque teased the news on social media with the image of an upcoming G Cabriolet, resurrecting the name and form of the convertible G-Wagen as it’s been known since the late 1990s.
Better yet, Mercedes confirmed to Car and Driver that open-air version of its luxe utility vehicle will be available in “almost every market in the world, including the U.S.” While Mercedes most recently offered a softtop convertible G-Wagen in 2018 as a farewell to the long-running first-gen Geländewagen in 2018, it was a special-edition Maybach G650 Landaulet limited to just 99 examples that was estimated at the time to cost over $500,000.
As Hagerty points out, the front of the G Cabriolet teased by Mercedes appears almost identical to that of the standard G-Class, and there are four doors—for at least the cabrio’s initial comeback, it seems there won’t be a two-door option. The style of roof, be it a soft top or folding hard top, can’t be discerned.
While fixed-roof first-gen G-Wagen hardtop auction prices range from around $30,000 to upwards of $200,000 for the very best examples depending on model year, the highly coveted Cabriolet variants—particularly two-door variants—routinely fetch six figures. Earlier this year, a 2013 Mercedes-Benz G Cabriolet that was originally delivered new to Abu Dhabi in the model’s final year of production fetched $286,000 with the equivalent of over 40,000 miles on the odometer at an RM Sotheby’s auction. And in 2021, a 2014 G Cabriolet Final Edition, one of 200 featuring limited edition badges commemorating the sendoff, was auctioned by RM Sotheby’s for nearly $490,000.
The brand new G Cabriolet, which will likely feature the a 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six supplemented by a mild hybrid engine to produce 443 horsepower and 413 pound-feet of torque, is expected to retail for just north of $200,000, but no one will no for sure until it’s fully unveiled at a later date…perhaps at the 2025 Munich Auto show from September 9-12.