Mercedes-Benz G500 Skips the Trails, Goes Drifting
Some people use their G-Wagen SUVs to conquer trails and go mall crawling. This owner uses it as a drift machine.
Mercedes-Benz designed the G-Wagen to not only look attractive and offer a variety of luxury features, but to provide control over your circumstances, whatever they may be. Cold? Turn on your heated steering wheel and seats. Need to get over muddy, rocky trails to get to your winter retreat? Lock one or all three of its differentials and plow ahead. But the owner of the G500 in this video seems to have fun losing a little bit of control.
We found it on the mb63trend Instagram page; after doing a little digging, it seems the G-Wagen in the footage belongs to a user who goes by the name Davis Mangalis. He took it to a place you’re probably not used to seeing G-Wagens: a drift park.
Yes, those do exist. In fact, there’s one in Riga, Latvia of all places called Wolftrike Drifta Halle. It looks basically like a giant indoor go-kart track that full-sized vehicles can also cut loose on. And that’s exactly what Mangalis does in his luxury off-roader. The bank-vault-on-wheels’s heft, driving position and capabilities gives you the ultimate feeling of control, but Mangalis doesn’t need that. He needs to break the grip the rear tires have on the slick surface so he can get his G500 a little sideways.
Mangalis enters a curve and heads toward a tire wall on the far side. In the middle of the bend, which causes his tall rig to noticeably lean, Mangalis lets out just the right amount of his G-Class’s 5.0-liter V8 power. The back end – fitted with what appears to be a special couple of wheels that are different from the ones up front – slides out slowly and gracefully.
Mangalis keeps the chaos under control until the end of the turn and then corrects the steering to straighten the G out. In any other vehicle, that hand work would be hard to spot, but the G500 makes it obvious when it leans over to one side in a way that makes you hold your breath for a split second.
Sure, drifting may not use the G-Wagen’s robust off-road hardware and impressive capabilities, but we’ll tell you one thing: This (and the same footage in reverse) sure beats the hell out of watching one only being driven from a trendy brunch spot to a department store.
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