Only 446 examples of the Mercedes G-Class 500 GE V8 AMG ever rolled off the line in 1993. One of them, custom-ordered by Saudi Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, just changed hands at RM Sotheby’s for roughly $143,000. That price, for a 32-year-old truck with a 237-horsepower V8, tells you everything about where the collector market sits on early AMG hardware.
This particular truck, chassis number 1669, was completed on July 28, 1993, and first registered in Saudi Arabia in February 1994. It has covered just 15,072 miles in three decades. The odometer alone makes it a unicorn, but the spec sheet pushes it further.
Prince Sultan requested Avantgarde Green paint, a color Mercedes’ own documentation flags as a bespoke order. The factory fitted a wider track, enlarged fender flares, and larger AMG alloy wheels. Inside, black and gray leather met walnut wood trim, along with automatic climate control, cruise control, heated front seats, and a power sunroof. For 1993, this was a G-Class dressed in its Sunday best.
In 1993, AMG was not yet a division of Mercedes-Benz. It was still an independent tuning house based in Affalterbach, collaborating with Stuttgart on select projects. The 500 GE V8 was the first G-Class to receive a V8 engine, a 5.0-liter unit that transformed what had been a utilitarian off-roader into something closer to a luxury performance vehicle. Mercedes originally planned to build around 500 units. They stopped at 446.
That gap between plan and execution is part of what makes this truck collectible. Low production numbers born from deliberate restraint carry more weight than artificially limited runs dreamed up by marketing departments. Mercedes and AMG simply decided 446 was enough.
Before the auction, the truck underwent a mechanical restoration in 2025 at Obsessive Car Workshop in Jeddah. The scope was practical rather than cosmetic: brake fluid replacement, a front axle oil leak repair, work on the heating and climate systems, a new fuel pump and filter, and differential service. It was the kind of targeted, maintenance-focused work that suggests the truck was kept well but needed sorting after years of sitting.
The G-Class launched in the late 1970s as a military-grade workhorse. Its transformation into a status symbol and collector piece has been one of the more improbable arcs in modern automotive history. The 500 GE V8 AMG sits at the hinge point of that transition, the moment the G-Class started becoming something its creators never imagined.
At $143,000, the truck sold for less than a new AMG G 63. A brand-new G 63 produces 577 horsepower, costs north of $180,000 before options, and depreciates the moment it leaves the lot. This 1993 example makes roughly a third of that power, rides on decades-old suspension geometry, and will almost certainly be worth more in five years than it is today.
Collectors have been circling early AMG-touched Mercedes models with increasing intensity. The pre-merger cars, built when AMG was still a scrappy independent operation hand-assembling engines, occupy a different category than the polished, corporate AMG products of the 2020s.
The next 500 GE V8 AMG to surface at auction will likely cost more. There are only 445 left to find.
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