Is the 2025 Mercedes-AMG G63 Still a Good SUV?
If what you want is a do-anything, go-anywhere, luxury performance SUV that’s just as at home at a film’s world premiere as it is in the Sahara, the Mercedes-AMG G63 is the best. Just make sure you can afford both its conspicuousness and its thirst for fuel.
How Does the 2025 Mercedes-AMG G63 Stack Up Against the Competition?
What competition? Seriously, very little could be considered direct competition for the G-Class. Off-road luxury and performance SUVs — like the Ineos Grenadier, Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392 and Land Rover Defender — offer a somewhat similar experience but without nearly the same level of refinement, speed and interior comfort as the G-Class. They’re far less expensive than the Mercedes, too.
Generation after generation, the Mercedes-Benz G-Class remains a singular experience. It occupies a class of one: In a field of more capable off-roaders, faster performance SUVs and plusher luxury barges than the 2025 Mercedes-AMG G63, no SUV sits so comfortably at the center of this Venn diagram.
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Much like the Porsche 911, each major generational leap of the G-Class elevates it several steps above the prior one while perfectly preserving its core identity. More than any other car (including the Porsche), the G-Wagen has remained the most true to itself over the past 30 years. This character consistency, along with its unwavering position as one of Mercedes’ top status symbols, cements the G in all its forms as an automotive icon.
Is the G63 the Top G-Wagen?
The G-Class’ AMG versions remain particularly aspirational. The cheapest and least powerful G costs $149,400 (prices include destination) and packs 443 horsepower, making the Gelandewagen an objet d’exces in any form, but the 577-hp, $187,250 top-dawg G63 is as excessive as it gets.
The overmoneyed crypto class loves the G63. Its considerable slab-sided acreage and comprehensive suite of available chrome accents allows for maximum attention garnered when burbling down Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive or through Miami’s Design District — especially when coated in retina-searing highlighter colors like Sun Yellow or Green Hell Magno. Other than a black, silver or white lease-‘n’-release special, a G63 that’s not garishly glitzed up is a rare sight.
So, you can imagine my surprise (and delight) when a 2025 Mercedes-AMG G63 showed up not only in the rather demure shade of Desert Silver Metallic — a primo $6,500 “Manufaktur” color I’d describe as light champagne — with blacked-out exterior accents and the optional $13,450 AMG Offroad Package Pro. My circle of G-loving friends and enthusiasts all agreed it was probably one of the least visually “AMG” G63s we’d seen thus far.
Among other things, that off-road package adds an extremely tacticool powder-coated roof rack with a corresponding mini ladder to the right of the real tailgate, all of which harmonized with the Night Package’s blacked-out bull bar and accompanying darkened badge kit. I love me a bright orange, chrome-dipped G, but this tastefully equipped G63 went a long way toward demonstrating the G63’s visual versatility.
Is the 2025 Mercedes-AMG G63 Still Fast?
But no G63 has even a remote capacity for subtlety. The “Mercedes truck” profile is unmistakable, and even the active exhaust can’t completely cork the menace of the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8. As has been the case with all AMG V-8s since time immemorial, its soundtrack is guttural and metallic, an oily rumble that befits the G63’s power and size.
The G63’s 577 hp and mighty 627 pounds-feet of torque are enough for a 4.2-second 0-60 mph scoot — a prosaic number until you consider both this SUV’s aerodynamics and its 5,842-pound curb weight. Light-to-light hole shots and on-ramp blasts are pure theater; smacking the accelerator initiates a slight lurch as the nine-speed automatic transmission kicks down a bracket of gears — then the 4.0-liter explodes with a medieval roar. Its rear end observably squats under acceleration, raising the front half with just a hint of torsional twist.
Acceleration is strong, but not oppressive in the way it can be in super-SUVs like the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT and Tesla Model X Plaid. It’s undeniably quick, but it’s more fun than focused, feeling very much like you shouldn’t be allowed (by either law or physics) to move nearly 6,000 pounds with such ferocity. The physicality of the G63’s forward advancement and its echoing blat summons antisocial behavior from even the most placid drivers.
It’s a total hoot, as has been true of every full production AMG Gelandewagen since the 2002 G55. What hasn’t remained consistent is the G’s shocking contrast of composure and comfort with AMG hilarity and its genuine roots as a military vehicle. Now, the current W465-generation G is about as far removed from the original cloth-seat, four-cylinder 4×4 box as humans are from bananas — yet we still share genetic similarities with that comical fruit.
Is the 2025 Mercedes-AMG G63 Comfortable?
It’s all about juxtaposition. The G63 wears the finest interior materials of any Mercedes short of an S-Class while also maintaining body-on-frame construction and full-time four-wheel drive. There are available massaging seats and a premium Burmester sound system, perfectly complemented by three locking differentials and a suite of terrain-specific drive modes. Dual 12.3-inch displays with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are impressively configurable, as are Merc’s signature ambient lights that gently (or aggressively) suffuse the interior with your favorite hue. Meanwhile, the mechanical door locks sound like rifle bolts, and all five doors open and shut like bunker hatches with a supremely satisfying chunk.
But again, with the exception of the infotainment system and associated smartphone connectivity, the G has offered this fabulous mix of ludicrous and luxe for decades now. What sets each successive refresh or generational leap apart is how Mercedes manages to further compartmentalize its raw truck DNA within a wrapper that’s not that much less comfortable than a standard GLE.
Other than some noticeable wind buffeting, this latest G63 is no more punishing or compromised than any other performance SUV — and if you drove any iteration of the long-lived “first-generation” W463 from 1990-2018, you’ll know that’s pure magic. I will say this latest G doesn’t feel significantly removed from the “second-generation” 2018-24 W463 outside the requisite tech and interior modernizations. Much of the modern G-Wagen’s irreplicable dual personality was born in this last generation, when the SUV abruptly evolved from a charming leather-lined V-8 tank to an actually livable — and luxe — super-SUV, with a day-to-day driving experience on par with other big-buck behemoths from Range Rover, BMW and elsewhere in the Mercedes lineup.
What’s New for the 2025 Mercedes-AMG G63?
A quick sidenote on this generational changeover. I have but one major operational complaint about the 2025 G63, and it involves the new keyless entry doors. Until this new generation launched for the 2025 model year, every prior G in the U.S. market had remote locks operated exclusively via the key fob, without the option of keyless entry. Now, the familiar mechanized handles incorporate touch-to-lock on the surface of the handle along with keyless entry. It’s fantastic in theory but clunky in execution; I couldn’t quite figure out the cadence of when the door was properly unlocked, leading to more than a few instances of having to fish the key out of my pocket when the door either failed to unlock or, in the case when I preemptively unlocked it, relocked itself after grabbing the handle. No biggie, but G-Class buyers with established muscle memory might need to unlearn old habits.
Without the benefit of a back-to-back drive with the outgoing SUV, you’d have to delve into the spec sheet to suss out the biggest changes. The biggest, of course, is partial electrification across the entire G-Class range: Both available gas powertrains pack the same 48-volt mild-hybrid system with an integrated electric starter motor, which Mercedes says adds 20 hp and 148 pounds-feet of torque at low engine rpm.
Those rare American G-Class buyers who do plan to take their 4×4 gigabrick off-road should absolutely spring for the AMG Offroad Package Pro — it ain’t just a roof rack and some mud flaps, it’s how you get the top-spec of the Active Ride Control suspension, which swaps physical antiroll bars for hydraulic hardware. This setup significantly alters roll stiffness, depending on setting. The Off-Road Package also unlocks off-road traction control configurable to seven distinct settings, as you would get in most track-focused AMG models.
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What Does the AMG Offroad Package Pro Add?
The package adds a few more off-road tweaks, but seeing as my schedule didn’t allow for any off-road adventuring, I can merely confirm that the wideband adjustability of the package-specific Active Ride Control was lovely on unexpectedly craggy and fractured street surfaces around Los Angeles. I can think of no better daily vehicle from a comfort, character and capability perspective, provided you can afford both its conspicuousness and consumption. Over 196 miles, I averaged an indicated 9.8 mpg in contrast with the G63’s EPA rating of 14/16/15 mpg city/highway/combined. Did the G63’s soundtrack and general go-get-’em attitude have me driving like a nutjob? Yes. Will normal, well-adjusted city driving also likely fall at or under that 14 mpg watermark? Also yes.
But what a blast. The Gelandewagen has never, ever been better even if it’s mostly the same as it ever was. As far as I’m concerned, they should make the W465-generation G63 for another 30 years. Maybe then we can talk about adding more power. Maybe.
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