Originally Posted by khuon

M-B already had a fine full-sized SUV... the G-Wagon. They're available in both SWB and LWB models and are great offroaders although many of the civilian models rarely ever see dirt. They're also some serious coinage as they start out around the US$80k mark. They're used by many military forces around the world. They also have an even more serious species of offroaders with their Unimogs.

I think the GL is pretty much a rebadged Jeep XK (Commander for the Jeep-challenged). The XK is also built on the same chassis as the WK (2005+ Grand Cherokee). It seems M-B has decided to consolidate their production by trying to standardise at least three of their vehicle products on the same chassis. Rumour has it they've hinted that they will retire the G-Wagon in favour of the GL although I think they'd lose much of their military/government customers if they did that.