Brabus has been known for concocting some over-the-top vehicles — in fact, it's not really known for much of anything else. This time, it positively outdoes itself, though, debuting the all-new 800 Adventure XLP Superwhite. What was once an innocent-enough Mercedes AMG G63 becomes a lifted 4x4 pickup with "extreme off-road capability" and paint so white it practically air conditions itself. The good news: if you don't like the obscenely white design, it's bound to change color dramatically the minute it rolls onto the street, let alone trail.
This isn't the first time Brabus has trotted out a high-riding G-Class with an "800 Adventure XLP" label on it. It developed just such an animal for the 2020 Geneva Motor Show that would have been. But somehow that 788-bhp super-pickup with optional drone wasn't quite outlandish enough for the builder or its clients. So now we get the Superwhite version, a motorized contradiction engineered to drive over the dirtiest, most inhospitable tracts of terra firma while styled like it should never leave the pristine confines of an aerospace-grade clean room.
The Brabus "Adventure XLP" spec overhauls the G63 with a full array of off-road goodies that starts with the extended frame, specially developed pickup bed and portal axles raising the truck to a 19.2-in (49-cm) ground clearance. Such an over-the-top specimen wouldn't be complete without a ridiculously overpowered engine, so Brabus has driven the already-powerful G63's 4.0-liter biturbo V8 up to 788 hp (588 kW).
The freshly tuned engine pushes out 737 lb-ft (1,000 Nm) of torque and powers a 0-62 mph (100 km/h) sprint time of 4.8 seconds. That's actually slower than the 4.5 seconds the standard G63 offers, and we can't imagine the ride there will be all that comfortable on the 22-in Pirelli Scorpion ATR all-terrain tires that necessitate electronically reining in top speed to a modest 130 mph (210 km/h).
Brabus has boosted other aspects of the XLP's performance with a height-adjustable ride control coilover suspension system with titanium-coated struts, custom suspension bits around the independent front suspension and rigid rear axle, specially developed Monoblock HD alloy wheels, and carbon skid plates.
Some carefully placed jewelry ensures that the XLP conveys its hardy woodsiness even when it's merely being valeted at the nightclub. That's clear from the windscreen-topping deflector with auxiliary lights, a 4,500-kg (9,920-lb) front winch that the average Adventure XLP buyer will undoubtedly not be prepared to use, and a platform roof rack. Brabus even offers to top the rack with a rooftop tent so that the truck can look like a weathered overland globe-trotter while it sits in the parking lots of every five-star hotel and resort along the journey.
That particular raft of upgrades, mods and additions certainly seem unnecessary, but it's not even what makes the newest Brabus a certifiable hunk of mad engineering devoid of logic. It's the whiter-than-white color scheme with which Brabus chooses to finish things off that seals the project's fate.
The 800 Adventure XLP Superwhite trades in the more subdued silvers, grays and blacks of past Brabusized Gs for what Brabus calls Diamond White Pearl. Instead of stopping there, Brabus busts right through the doors and splashes heaps of eye-scarring white on everything from the pinpoint-precise perforations of the leather seats, to the smooth "White Heat" leather of the lower dashboard, right down to details like the door locks and air vents. There is some carbon fiber and black trim, both inside and out, to offset all the white, but it proves too little, too late.
Not even the pickup bed is safe from Brabus' whiteout pen, its floor lined in a white Flexi Teak decking borrowed from Brabus' high-performance boat line (yes that's a thing, too). Forget about mountain bikes or fishing gear — a lightly used screwdriver, wrench or trowel will repaint that floor beyond the power of the strongest industrial cleaning agents. Best to just treat it like an actual yacht deck.
Sure, the 800 Adventure XLP Superwhite is much more likely to find a permanent stationary home in a garage amidst dozens of other nearly-as-ridiculous super-machines than to do any actual driving, off- or even on-road, but it's still an unnecessarily silly and contradictory vanity project. Just paint the thing a color that won't show every atom of smut, or make it a fast, low-riding urban car.
In one final serving of salt to the wounds, Brabus starts the Superwhite at €631,067 (approx. US$693,500), excluding VAT. And that's before the buyer wrestles with the hopeless task of quenching the chronic thirst of the 15.5-mpg (combined) ute amidst current fuel pricing. Ouch.
Source: Brabus
