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Ah, the G-Wagen, the most indestructible Mercedes of all time. Originally designed for the army, buy sequentially updated and made more luxurious over the years, as well as being renamed the G-Class. Nowadays you can mostly see them with big, bulky AMG bodykits, massive alloys and dark glass.
For those of us who prefer our G-Wagens (no, I'm not calling it the G-Class, go away) a little more pure though, there's this - the G350d Professional, which strips away all the unnecessary fripperies and turns the big boxy Merc back into the workhorse it always was.
So, you get an updated 3.0-liter V6 diesel, now with a third more power than the old Professional model of G (it's up to 245hp now), with claimed fuel consumption of 9.9-litres per 100km and Co2 emissions of 261g/km. A seven-speed automatic gearbox is standard. There's an updated interior which does come with such things as a multi-function steering wheel and an eight-inch COMMAND infotainment screen, but which also includes heavy-duty rubber mats and a drain hole so that you can hose out the interior.
Just to underscore the off-road credentials, there's a 10mm rise in ride height, and you can optionally have a solid-steel front bumper that has attachment lugs for a winch. Oh yes. It can tackle a 36-degree approach slope and a 39-degree departure slope. The maximum payload is 592kg.
The optional Professional Off Road Pack also comes with protectors for the lights, a wood-floored load compartment and a roof rack with ladder.
You can have your G-Wagen Professional in 13 different paint schemes, including a 'China Blue' which is meant to hark back to 'Otto' - the round-the-world G-Wagen driven by Gunther Holtorf. The alloys are a simple five-spoke, matte-black design (should have been steel wheels, surely) and the radiator grille is also a de-blinged simple black affair. Unbelievably, you can have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, although we await the 'hose-out' setting for Siri.