On an uphill sand dune drag race , which wins: a Nissan Patrol, a Toyota Land Cruiser, or the Mercedes-Benz G500 4×42? We find out at the Faya Dune in Sharjah, UAE. Place your bets…
Drag races. As well as being ridiculous amounts of fun and a popular destroyer of rear tyres, they’re also a key benchmark when it comes to measuring performance, especially when the races take place on a mountain of sand. Such was the case when crankandpiston.com answered a challenge at the Faya Dune, Sharjah, the only term being that all three cars had to be stock (no turbo-spewing Liwa monsters here, thank you).
But which of the three contenders would emerge victorious?
In the white corner(s), we have a V8 Nissan Patrol – nope, not the NISMO version – and our long term Toyota Land Cruiser VXR, legends on the dunes for generations and, between them, packing upwards of 600bhp and (800lb ft) of torque. Or enough to uproot several trees without breaking a sweat.
In the blue corner however is, as our man AJ explains in the above video he shot, the machine gun in this gun fight against the local legends: the Mercedes-Benz G500 4×42. It weighs a sizable 2996kg and spews 416bhp and an enormous 610Nm (450lb ft) of torque from the essentially same 4-litre twin-turbo V8 you’d find in a Mercedes-AMG GT R. If that’s not enough, the 4×42 also stands 2.25m tall – around 45cm above both the Patrol and Land Cruiser respectively – with 450mm of ground clearance, 240mm more than a standard G-Wagen. So, who’s your money on?
