Boston.com's view

The dilemma: Where do you park a Galaendewagen?

The answer: Right between a Range Rover 4.6 HSE and a Hummer.

That is because the beast more properly known as a Mercedes-Benz G500 is instilled with some of the best attributes of the two: the Rover’s elegant interior and the Hummer’s brute utility.

Call the G500 a cruiser and a bruiser, a vehicle that is both practical and elegant, even if it does look, as a couple of strangers pointed out to me, like an old Land Rover or a Volkswagen Thing on steroids.

The vehicle popularly known as the Galaendewagen was conceived in 1976 as a military vehicle. It was sold in various forms – from stripped down to specially equipped – to military and police agencies, and mining companies, around the world.

A few, sliding in on the gray market, made their way into the United States, where a distributor sold them, outfitted with leather and fine interiors, for $125,000 and up. Mercedes looked the other way, perhaps for too long, as the high-end luxury SUV market grew considerably.

Now, Mercedes has stepped in to take back its share of the market and plans to sell 1,500-2,000 G500s in the United States annually. And at the price of $73,000, they’ll go fast.

For that, you get a vehicle that is both comfortable and will go many of the places a Hummer will go. It is also practical in a way the Hummer is not – you don’t need to own a second car for long highway trips.

Instead, you ride in spacious luxury. Standard equipment on the G500 includes a full leather interior, walnut trim, power windows, 10-way electrically adjustable front seats, front and rear heated seats, cruise control, central door locks, automatic climate control, a navigation system, nine-speaker audio system, and voice controls for both audio and the integrated telephone.

The tallest of the tall fit easily beneath the G500’s towering roof, and the driver’s seat has about 8 inches of up and down travel.

This luxury adds to the surprise of first hitting the road in the G500. Only then do you realize you are riding in a truck – stiff frame, stiff body, stiff suspension.

That suspension uses rigid axles front and rear and has longitudinal and transverse links, with coil springs and gas shocks, at each corner.

The G500’s 2-plus tons are sent crisply down the road by a 5.0-liter V-8 that produces 292 horsepower. It’s the same engine found in the big S-Class sedan and the SL roadster.

On the highway, the Galaendewagen was remarkably quiet for such a tall box. It was quick in passing and stable during steady lane changes. On winding roads, it proved to be a bit tippy in fast corners, but that’s something anyone who drives an SUV should be aware of.

Offroad, out in my little logged-off patch of New Hampshire, complete with icy streams, stumps, rocks, steep climbs, and leftover logs, the G500 was virtually unstoppable.

First, it has loads of torque (336 lbs.-ft.) for the slow, powerful crawl that i s the essence of good offroading. Electronic traction and stability control, capable of braking individual, slipping wheels, even as power goes to wheels with good purchase, let it seemingly “walk” up the slipperiest of steep slopes.

But at the heart of its offroad capabilities are three locking differentials – front, center, and rear. You can shift into low range on the fly, up to about 15 miles per hour. The G500 is full-time all-wheel drive, and using seesaw switches on the dash, the differentials can be locked in tough combination.

For tough going, lock the rear. For tougher going, lock the center and rear. And for the worst of travel – even when stuck – lock them all and you’ve got four churning, biting tires at your command. You won’t do much sharp cornering all locked up, but you can plow your way out of trouble.

I also found, in traveling on a snowy, everyday road, that the efforts of the traction/stability control systems were oticeable. Purposely stopping part ay up an unplowed, snowy road – with ice underneath the snow – I gave the car more gas than you normally would in such a situation. The braking action at each slipping wheel was evident, even as the car surged ahead like it was climbing dry pavement.

With the Porsche Cayenne SUV on the horizon, BMW pushing a powerful new X5, and Range Rover redesigned, Mercedes has come into the luxury SUV market at a fortuitous time. And it has done so with a vehicle that offers a grand combination of luxury and brute utility. Now, when the folks at AMG plop a 5.5-liter engine into this rig. . .

2002 Mercedes-Benz G500

Base price: $72,500

Price as tested: $73,145

Horsepower: 292

Torque: 336 lbs.-ft.

Wheelbase: 112.0 inches

Overall length: 183.5 inches

Width: 69.3 inches

Height: 72.3 inches

Curb weight: 5,423 lbs

Seating: 5 passengers

Fuel economy: 12.9 miles per gallon

SOURCE: Daimler-Chrysler Corp.; fuel economy from Globe testing.

Nice touch
I know the Germans are supposed to hate cupholders, but if they were trying to make a statement with the leather sack that clips to the console and serves as a cupholder, it backfired. I loved it.
Annoyance
The G500 attracts enough attention as it is. Did they really need to have blue, backlit Mercedes emblems glowing from the tops of the rocker panels when the front doors are opened?