My vehicle prior to the 200 was a 2017 G63 that I had purchased new. It was fantastic in so many ways. It was fast (quite a bit faster than the 200), it handled well (better than the 200 on the highway), it had lots of room, it was comfortable for long drives, it had an iconic look that everyone recognizes, it had factory triple lockers, it had Apple CarPlay, and so on. But it was extremely expensive to maintain and not at Toyota's level of quality control and reliability. Brake parts were VERY expensive. Some parts were very difficult to get (it took 9 months for them to get warranty replacements for cracked tail light assemblies). I moved on because I was getting close to the end of my warranty and it was becoming clear that it was going to cost $$$ to keep it going if I kept it.
The recognizable thing led to a few amusing moments, but was mostly a good thing with lots of thumbs up and positive comments. I was actually surprised that I got very few negative comments over the years of owning G-wagons (I had 3, starting with a 2014 G550, 2016 G550, and finally the 2017 G63).
Shortly after I got the 2014, I took my mom shopping (being the good son that I am...). When we were walking back to the car, a couple in their 60's was getting out of their car parked near mine. The husband made a comment along the lines of "that's pretty cool" and the wife said something along the lines of "that's for someone who's overcompensating" (I don't recall exactly what she said), just as I was pressing the remote button to unlock it. She looked pretty embarrassed when she realized I heard what she had said. I just found it amusing as I didn't really care what other people thought - as long as I was happy with it, that's all that mattered.
The other amusing moment could have turned out ugly. My dad, brother, and I drove up to Newfoundland in one of my G-wagons (I don't remember which one it was). In a small town, there was a nice pier with some colorful boats and a few small icebergs that had come in, so we parked and got out to take some pictures. About that time, we noticed some locals giving us a bit of a dirty look, which was very uncharacteristic for folks up in Newfoundland (they're always incredibly friendly). A few minutes later, one of them came over to welcome us and told us they initially thought we were government inspectors coming to give them a hassle when they saw the G-wagon. Once they figured out we were just tourists, all was fine.
Based on owning both, cargo space seems to be pretty comparable overall, but the distribution of the dimensions is definitely somewhat different, so that would definitely have an impact on the ability to sleep inside with a pet and so forth. The new G-wagons (2019+), however, have less cargo space than the older G-wagons (201
. They made them longer overall, but sacrificed some cargo space to give the rear seats more legroom. When the new model first came out, I was debating about trading in for a new one, so I took a tape measure to a new one that had come in at the local dealership. The space above the wheel wells on the new models is also taken up by things like a subwoofer. All in all, the new model loses about 15% of cargo space based on the measurements I took. The MSRP also shot through the roof - a comparably configured G63 to my 2017 is now about $20-30K more than my 2017 was. The 2017 was pretty much at the limit of what I was comfortable paying, so the price increase was too much.
The new G63 is much faster than my 2017 was and the new G550 is just about as fast as my 2017 G63 was, so a new G550 would probably be plenty fast if you do decide to go with a new G-wagon at some point.
Regarding electric, I think it's going to take quite a bit more than 2-3 years to get the charging infrastructure to the point where it needs to be for electric to really take off. The current typical range of 200-300 miles just isn't enough - I think they need to get to 500 miles. On a long trip, it just isn't practical to drive 200 miles out of 500 on a long driving day and then have to stop for a couple of hours to charge the battery back up (if you can even find a charger). A range of 500 miles would probably be enough for any 1 driving day for me and it could then charge up at the hotel overnight. On our trips, we often have 1 long driving day on each end of the trip (MA to VA, for example) and then the days in the middle are typically much less driving and focused on enjoying scenery, hiking, scenic train rides, etc.
Getting back to cargo space for a moment, something I really wish manufacturers would do with SUVs is make the 2nd and 3rd row seats easily removable like they often do with mini vans. In both the LC and the G-wagon, when you fold the 2nd rows seats forward, you lose a LOT of cargo space to those seats. If they had quick release mechanisms like in mini vans, you could get the seats completely out of the way and gain quite a bit of usable cargo space. It's kind of a pain to unbolt seats to remove them temporarily. In the G-wagon, putting the rear seat back in was difficult because there was an assist strut or spring that required a special tool to reattach properly. I really don't get why no SUV, to my knowledge, has ever had this feature.
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