The Ineos Grenadier may be pursuing a return to the days of a simpler Land Rover Defender, and we are actually old enough to remember when a Land Rover Defender was in fact a simple machine.
The only trouble was, Land Rover imported just a tiny number of NAS Defenders in the 1990s, and they weren't priced like the simple machines they were.
We are also old enough to remember a time when the Mercedes-Benz G-Class was a rugged and spartan 4x4, before it became an accessory to be parked in front of a Balenciaga or Lilly Pulitzer.
Those days are long gone as well, but at least you can still find a W460 G-Class from a time when it was more Swiss Army—and less Victorinox outlet mall store.
This is one such G-Class we recently spotted, and it is the trusty, oil-flavored 300 GD.
And it hails from a time when (get this!) the badge actually corresponded to the displacement of what was underhood, which was a 3.0-liter diesel inline-five good for 88 hp and 126 lb-ft of torque. Of course, we are never getting back to when any badge corresponds to anything underhood even 50% of the time.
And besides featuring a very mandatory olive green color—several shades of it in fact—it also features the split barn doors not all W460 two-door models were equipped with.
One curious bit that G-wagen enthusiasts will spot right away are the rectangular side markers on the front wings—an item that nobody past the 1990s would have remotely cared about installing.
This leads us to believe that this particular example was imported far earlier, back when those were in fact items The Gubmint took seriously, in addition to giant impact bumpers and various other add-ons to bring its performance output closer to that of something domestic and equally smog-choked.
W460/461/463 enthusiasts might also spot the diamond-plated front wing surfaces, which look very appropriate, and perhaps the slightly wider than stock wheel-arch extensions from a later G-Class.
This example appears to have escaped unscathed from all the other stuff Uncle Sam was willin' to drill into the exterior and undercarriage to make things safer for the American consumer, or they've since been removed to create less of an eyesore to the owner.
An external roll cage along with a roof ladder complete the very appealing picture, with this W460 looking ready to take part in another mission near the Suwalki Gap.
(If you're unfamiliar with this location, it is definitely not a Gap factory outlet in Suwalki, Pennsylvania, just outside of King of Prussia. But it definitely involved Prussia at one point).
Either way, this 300 GD looked fantastic in its weathered shape and ticked many of the right boxes for a weekend runabout or Costco shuttle.
If you're thinking about finding and importing one of these, the bad news is that all the good ones were picked clean years ago, as the 1980s examples have been eligible for importation for some time. This still leaves some interesting 1990s W463 examples that are now in the process of being scalped to be flipped stateside.
The good news is, there is drivetrain commonality with 1990s USDM units, so it shouldn't be too hard to find parts for any of these. They were, after all, made for a very long time, and the list of exterior accessories includes NATO-flavored toys.
Now, if Mercedes-Benz can find a way to bring back the current G-Class as a two-door, and basically give it an interior on par with what we saw in the 1980s, and also equip it with one of the smaller diesels it still has in its parts catalog, and also paint them all this color...
We know it won't be inexpensive, but we suspect there just might be a market out there for something like that.
You may recall that the automaker has just done something kind of close to this as a nod to the original W463, but it's neither a two-door model, nor is it very spartan inside, and it doesn't feature a small powerplant. And it's definitely not cheap.
Should Mercedes-Benz bring back a two-door version of the G-Class, even with all the modern tech? Let us know in the comments below.
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