Mercedes sold 49,700 G-Classes in 2025, a 23 percent increase and the highest annual sales figure since the model first appeared in 1979The electric G580 actually contributed meaningfully to the record, despite being previously called a failure by a senior Mercedes executiveAround 80 percent of all G-Classes ever manufactured are still on the road, and Mercedes is planning a smaller, more affordable version for 2027 Let's be honest about something. The Mercedes G-Class stopped being a serious off-road vehicle approximately 15 years ago. It was once genuinely capable of conquering difficult terrain. It was built for military contracts and jungle expeditions. It was a machine that didn't care whether you were driving through a supermarket car park or across the Sahara.Now it's a status symbol. A very expensive, very square, very conspicuous way of telling the world you've made it. You can still take one off-road if you fancy it. But nobody does. They drive them through cities with the sort of frequency that suggests they've never seen an actual countryside. And yet. Nobody seems to care about that transformation. In fact, people seem to want the G-Class more than ever. Mercedes just recorded its best ever sales year for the model. Forty-nine thousand seven hundred units shifted in 2025 alone. A 23 percent jump from the previous year. Since the car first appeared back in 1979, not a single calendar year has produced those numbers. That's remarkable, when you think about it. The G-Class has existed in various forms for over four decades. It's survived numerous redesigns, ownership changes, and shifts in the automotive landscape. Through all of it, demand just keeps climbing. =The status symbol that refuses to slow down Here's where things get genuinely surprising. Mercedes has acknowledged that the electric version of the G-Class actually helped deliver this record. The G580 with EQ Technology, their fully electric Geländewagen, attracted buyers who wouldn't have otherwise considered purchasing one. New customers. Fresh blood in the G-Class ecosystem. This is remarkable because earlier in 2025, a senior Mercedes executive described the electric G-Class in terms that were, shall we say, less than flattering. The car was apparently gathering dust at dealerships. Dealers were struggling to move units. The whole electric G experiment seemed destined for quiet failure. Then it didn't fail. It actually contributed to a record-breaking year. Either Mercedes dramatically slashed prices behind the scenes, or wealthy buyers eventually decided they wanted a silent square box for their garage collections. Possibly both. Either way, the turnaround from "sitting like lead" to "substantially contributing to record sales" is the sort of marketing redemption story that deserves its own television programme. Mercedes doesn't separate their sales figures by powertrain, so we can't know exactly how many electric versus combustion G-Classes found homes. That's frustrating for obvious reasons. But the company clearly wants to position the electric version as a genuine alternative rather than a curiosity, so they'd hardly trumpet its contribution if it hadn't actually moved in meaningful numbers. And it works. Forty-nine thousand seven hundred people proved it works in 2025 alone. The G-Class is the automotive equivalent of buying the most obvious, unapologetic luxury item imaginable. No pretence. No subtlety. Just pure, concentrated status parked conspicuously where everyone can see it. Mercedes will keep building them. People will keep buying them. And somewhere in the back of a Magna Steyr factory in Austria, the most successful status symbol in automotive history will continue being assembled, square edge by square edge, into the foreseeable future.
