A Joy Ride With Ralph Nader - The car industry's fiercest critic is taken for
a spin in the most expensive S.U.V. ever made.

By JEFFREY GOLDBERG

The Mercedes Gelaendewagen is the fastest, most expensive and all-around most
blazingest sport utility vehicle in the world, and when your faithful
correspondent was recently offered the chance to drive one, he jumped at it.
This is because your correspondent is most definitely not in league with the
self-flagellating, I'm-perfectly-happy-with-my-Corolla-lying,
NPR-pledge-week-donating S.U.V.-bashers who have made life unbearable, or at
least mildly annoying, for the millions of red-blooded men who cruise the
Main Streets of America in S.U.V.'s designed to ford wide rivers and haul
sheep and goats.

I myself drive a Toreador Red Ford Explorer XLT, a rock-solid and capacious
vehicle designed to meet any driving challenge, except for parking and
backing up.

But it's no Gelaendewagen.

This is why: the G-Wagen is a fearsome, black, box-framed behemoth that
weighs almost three tons. It's built like a tank (it started out as a German
military vehicle), and it goes 0-to-1,000 in about two seconds. It is the
Richard Wagner of S.U.V.'s. It also, by the way, costs $135,000, which
includes a burled-walnut steering wheel, as well as floormats.

My G-Wagen was delivered to me by Michael Aumock of G.Wagen USA, the sole
distributor of the 150 G-Wagens shipped to the United States each year.
Aumock seemed nervous about handing over the keys. But after I executed what
he called the finest parallel-parking job ("for a reporter") he'd ever seen,
he let me drive off alone in the G-Wagen.

I will admit to a certain ambivalence upon taking custody of a G-Wagen: I
have a pronounced aversion to Teutonic vehicles of death. On the other hand,
the G-Wagen goes really fast, and I like big things that go fast, even if
they're Wagnerian.

Before you label me some sort of Faludi-esque, wretched, he-man manque, let
me state that I am actually quite content with my life, except for those rare
moments when I would like it to be a bit more like Puff Daddy's.

As soon as I left Aumock, I started driving really fast —100-miles-an-hour
fast — and I wasn't pulled over even once. What I found especially gratifying
was that people noticed me: they waved, they gave me the thumbs-up and then,
I suspect, they thought, "Jackass." But drawing attention to myself wasn't
the point of this test drive. The people at G-Wagen wish to broaden the
appeal of their monster vehicle. Today, owners of G-Wagens are concentrated
in the power centers of Southern California and tony New York suburbs. (A
document provided by G.Wagen USA lists Pl1/3cido Domingo, Carroll O'Connor,
Seal and Arnold Schwarzenegger, himself a Teutonic vehicle of death, as
G-Wagen owners.)

But I wanted to see if the G-Wagen could sell in Washington, where power is
best exercised with quiet discretion, which is to say, not from the front
seat of a $135,000 S.U.V. But I couldn't find a single Washington power
figure willing to participate in my experiment. Vernon Jordan wasn't home
when I tried to take him for a ride. For security reasons, I did not approach
the White House, and Robert Strauss's secretary said her boss knows nothing
about cars, except that he has a driver who drives his. So I sought out
Washington's premier critic of the Washington power game and of ostentatious
consumption in general.

"Get out of the way, cars!" Ralph Nader yells as I drive him in circles
around Washington. My goal has changed: rather than get Vernon Jordan to
assess the truck's future among Washington power figures, I would now try to
persuade Nader — Mr. Unsafe at Any Speed, Mr. Green Party, Mr. My Car Is a
Subway Train — to say something nice about the G-Wagen.

"This shows the outermost limits of technological madness," Nader tells me.

I step on the gas. "Feel that pickup," I say.

"What is this thing called again?" he asks. The Galaendewagen, I say.

"It's the Stupidwagen, if you ask me."

"But check out the steering wheel, Ralph. Burled walnut."

He ignores me, asking instead how many G-Wagens are sold each year. One
hundred and fifty, I tell him.

"One hundred and fifty knuckleheads," Nader says.

I tell him that Schwarzenegger owns two.

"One hundred and forty-nine knuckleheads," he says.

"Is there anything good you could say about the G-Wagen?" I ask.

"What's good about this is that it shows us in one compressed bundle of metal
the shameful level of conspicuous consumption in this country," he says.

"Did I tell you that the steering wheel is burled walnut?" I ask.

It's not even my truck, and Nader is making me feel bad. He's not exactly
wrong, though, about the G-Wagen. It's not shameful, but I realized later
that there's something ridiculous about the notion of a $135,000 S.U.V.,
because the quotidian things you will do with a $135,000 S.U.V. are the same
quotidian things you will do with a $20,000 Camry.

I had this revelation when I was discussing with my wife where we should take
the G-Wagen to dinner. We chose a drive-thru, of course, to best show off the
G-Wagen. I splurged and bought my wife a Taco Bell Taco Supreme, the
Gelaendewagen of Mexican fast food.

But a problem arose, one that would stop me from ever buying a G-Wagen, even
if I wasn't approximately $133,250 short of the purchase price at the moment:
I couldn't find a single place to put my Dr. Pepper.

My G-Wagen had no cup holders. Not one. For $135,000, you'd think they could
have built in a cup holder. My Ford Explorer — my modest, workaday Ford
Explorer — has four cup holders. Now that's what I call an S.U.V.