The Mercedes 250GD Wolf by Expedition Motor Company is effectively a military surplus G Wagen reincarnated as a beautifully crafted civilian model.
MALIBU, Calif. – The sun is shining, the air is cool, the roof is off and the beltline is low. We’re surrounded in every direction by atypically green mountains in this remote corner of the Santa Monica Mountains. Oh, and the windshield’s down, sealing the deal on the most back-to-basics, horse-like transportation experience possible. Of course, we’re also going 25 miles per hour, which makes things a bit, um, windy.
Levin says it takes 2,200 hours of labor to create a Wolf. Ninety-eight percent of that is done in EMC’s workshop in Poland, with some finishing touches put on at company headquarters in Frenchtown, N.J. There’s also a shop in Hamburg, Germany, specifically dedicated to building the new injection pumps eachinline-five gets. There are 24 employees total in those three facilities, including two technicians who worked on the G Wagen’s original assembly line in Austria.
That seems like a lot, but these are smart, strategic choices made to, once again, achieve the perception of authenticity. It also makes the 250GD better to drive and more civilized, while not trying to make it something it’s not. Levin seemed very conscious of this and said on multiple occasions that such hilly terrain is not the 250GD’s forte. That would be correct, but this 250GD Wolf has one final modification that isn’t doing it any favors: an automatic transmission. The five-speed is a “722.6” 5G-Tronic that was found in a laundry list of Mercedes throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Slushboxes of any kind are notoriously power-sapping bad news for low-output vehicles, and this one is no different.
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Why was a grizzly bear hanging out with a wolf pack?The interspecies encounter, recorded in Yellowstone National Park, is likely due to one key factor.
Read more »
Alexei Navalny Dies In ‘Polar Wolf’ Prison—The Latest Putin Critic Who Suffered Untimely DeathI cover breaking news for Forbes. Before Forbes, I worked as a reporter for USA Today in Asheville and Black Mountain, North Carolina. I received my bachelor's degree in journalism from Auburn University and my master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.
Read more »
'We don’t want to cry wolf' How forecasters predict L.A.'s next huge rain stormBased on their expertise, forecasters at the National Weather Service in Oxnard correctly anticipated that even the machine-calculated, eye-popping rain totals were probably an underprediction.
Read more »
Remains found on Wolf Creek Pass in 1991 identified as Indiana manSydney Isenberg is an Emmy-nominated digital content producer with Denver7 (KMGH) in Denver, Colorado. She began her career in Bakersfield, California, after graduating from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University in 2018.
Read more »
CNN's Wolf Blitzer Says He's 'Fine' After Nearly Vomiting On AirRyan is a national reporter at HuffPost -- one of few who have the good fortune to work from the site's Denver office.
Read more »
Mogul Memo to Byron Allen: Beware the Bidder Who Cried WolfAllen's quest for Paramount casts a harsh light on the entrepreneur’s constant offers, murky financing and focus on linear assets
Read more »