Gelaendewagen no more; Next-gen Mercedes G-Class loses Brinks truck look.(News)(Brief Article)

Byline: BOB GRITZINGER Back when the first Gelaendewagen rolled off an Austrian assembly line in 1979, the spartan military-styled sport/ute wasn't intended for the kind of country-club duty of today's air-conditioned, airbag-equipped, power-everything model. But even in the luxuriously appointed guise that Mercedes has sold in the States since late 2001, the boxy G-Class has remained far more utilitarian than virtually any competitor, except maybe the original Hummer H1 and the do-anything Unimog. In 2006 DaimlerChrysler's biggest, baddest bank vault of an SUV gets replaced by ...