[haldar_siliguri]

Was doing a Sunday drive this morning on the NH-34 stretch between Siliguri and Islampur in North Bengal, we spotted about 15 Merc GL500 V8 with German and Netherlands' registration plates in a long convoy! They turned out to be a Berlin-Himalaya expedition team.
I turned around to follow the team.... Here are some of them in pics... more to follow...

P.S. - If anyone has any idea of this expedition team please let us know. Couldn't find anything of the internet about them.

Regards

[justwheels]

Let me congratulate you for the great find.
Its always great to see cross country expedition'ers on Indian Roads. And those machines look really great. Did you manage a chat or was it just a passing by catch.

Nevertheless, Great one.

[speedy]

This car that you have pictured is not a GL500 but a G55 AMG. These cars are very capable and extremely good offroaders too..Perfect cars for expeditions and long distance travel. Great catch and did you talk to them and get details of their route and some more pictures?

[Scorcher]

Originally Posted by speedy

This car that you have pictured is not a GL500 but a G55 AMG.

Correction Abhi, those seem to be G500s and not 55 AMGs. Note the alloys, the V8 badges, 55 has a V8 Kompressor badge, right?

[haldar_siliguri]

Originally Posted by speedy

This car that you have pictured is not a GL500 but a G55 AMG. These cars are very capable and extremely good offroaders too..Perfect cars for expeditions and long distance travel. Great catch and did you talk to them and get details of their route and some more pictures?

For your information, I too had doubts as to whether these were AMGs or not so I drove up close. If you zoom in on of the rear shots you can see the GL500 badge.

Remember they have driven the cars from Germany all the way, so it doesnt have to be just GL55AMG as in India where only the latter model is sold.

Also I don't know but maybe a standard GL500 makes better sense over an AMG Supercharged engine for such a LONG drive.
No I didnt meet up with them, they were on the go so I didnt bother them much, just a thumbs up.

Also bear with me for some time, I will upload more pics of the other GLs of that fleet!

[AlphaKilo]

The GL500 is not from Berlin, its from Hamburg(plates: HH-XX-XX). But did you manage to strike a conversation with them? Driving all the way from Germany through Middle east? They must have been driving for months. But I would any day prefer a GL500 over AMG just because the gasoline is not cheap and in places like himalayas where finding petrol bunks is a rare occasion, its better to come down with a GL500 than a AMG

[Scorcher]

Friends, you still didn't get the drift. Speedy might be wrong about the 55 AMG part, but I second him on the G part. Its a G500 (G-Wagon) not a GL500. Both are different vehicles.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by Scorcher

Friends, you still didn't get the drift. Speedy might be wrong about the 55 AMG part, but I second him on the G part. Its a G500 (G-Wagon) not a GL500. Both are different vehicles.

Thanks for pointing it out. I guess, everyone meant the G-Klasse but wrote in a flow "GL" (or atleast I did). Its nice to see westerners exploring our country and given the condition of todays Indian GQ highways, I bet they would be enjoying their stay here. Except for a few occasions when they might see bikes and tractors driving on the wrong side with headlights on.

While I was talking to one of my friends who was in Daimler-trucks,India, as he was on the highway, he found it amusing that vehicles overtaking(coming on the opposite side) flashed their headlights to indicate that they want go first, whereas this is otherway around in Europe or anywhere else in the world. And i guess this rule/idealogy is written down nowhere that a person from the other driving style can google and find it out, unless otherwise someone tells them the way we do it.

[haldar_siliguri]

Here are more pics of those GLs, the convoy was scattered over a few kms...

[haldar_siliguri]

Originally Posted by Scorcher

Friends, you still didn't get the drift. Speedy might be wrong about the 55 AMG part, but I second him on the G part. Its a G500 (G-Wagon) not a GL500. Both are different vehicles.

Oh yes, thanks for pointing this out, pardon me for missing out on being specific G and GL. On that I'd like point out that as far as I noticed most were GLs and a few black ones were G500s or something, I couldnt turn around and look at the badge on every car. My bad!

[fx45]

Those G500s must be definately proving tough on their pockets as far as petrol prices go in India! Great find

[pratiksinhal]

Niladri perhaps this was the best sunday morning drive.
I still remember the Green G500 which almost took an U-turn seeing us turning towards Siliguri.
We missed to take a shot of the first one which had the Dutch Flag designed on the carrier. The best amongst the lot. They 15 apparently. We could only see 13. Probably we missed a couple on the diversion.

[speedy]

Originally Posted by Scorcher

Correction Abhi, those seem to be G500s and not 55 AMGs. Note the alloys, the V8 badges, 55 has a V8 Kompressor badge, right?

Sorry my bad, so used to writing G55 that the normal G gets left out.

Originally Posted by haldar_siliguri

Here are more pics of those GLs, the convoy was scattered over a few kms...

My Friend even these cars a G's and not GL's. Adding two pics for reference and their body styles are way to different that you even need to see the badge.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by haldar_siliguri

Here are more pics of those GLs, the convoy was scattered over a few kms...

Is that a sumo following the G in the second pic? it looked like a Force Trax(desi "ji") to me at first sight.

[syedhafeez]

OMG...!!! How does it really matter if the car following is a Sumo or Trax. Enjoy the Merc G ( ji )