Dave Gomes

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Bailey, Colorado, USA

I'd been bouncing around among various Land Rovers (Series, Defender, Discovery) since 1996. They were all great trucks in their own ways, but I was still never quite satisfied. One day my friend Chuck Henry called and said he had taken delivery of a nice Mercedes Benz Gelaendewagen. Now I thought these were $150,000 rock star plush-mobiles, so I was surprised to say the least. But Chuck sent me a link to a web page maintained by the previous owner of this vehicle and I began to be awakened to the possibilities of the 460 G-wagen.

If you CLICK HERE you can see how I was first intorduced to this truck, by a visit to Erwin's web page.

I was suitably impressed and had to go see the truck. I drove down to Chuck's place and he was already at work trying to diagnose some problems the truck had after 2 years of bouncing around among dealers and not having a proper owner. On top of that he was telling me of his grand plans to have this truck lifted, on 35" tires, and with a new Chevy drive train fitted. I was already in love with the vehicle and her grand history just as she sat, and it pained me to hear of her impending "demise" in the conversion process. So I told Chuck, "If you decide you don't want this truck, just let me know and I'll trade you the Disco (1998 Land Rover Discovery with 70,000 miles) straight across, pink slip for pink slip." Well, long story short, A week or so later I got a phone call, and a couple of months after that, the trade was complete. SHE WAS MINE! This is pretty much how she looked when I got her.

Slaughterhouse Gulch, CO

Since then I've done a lot of work on her to arrive at the stage you see in the picture at the top of this page. Most of the maintenance and upgrade type stuff is documented in articles in the G-tech section of this website. My tastes tend toward overland expeditioning, rather than hard core rock crawling so I've added things to taylor the G to my chosen use. Chuck had added the fender flares before I got the truck, and I took it from there. She's got about 275,000 miles on her now and still going strong!

Factory Rotzler winch and wiring
Long(er!) range saddle tanks in wheel wells for greater fuel capacity
Newer front bumper with recovery pin
Home made roof rack mounted on Thule bars with front edge set back to eliminate light glare on hood
Home made cargo/dog guard and cargo platforms over the wheel wells
100 watt bulbs in headlights, fog lights, and rack mounted driving lights, all run through relays
York Compressor and components from On Board Air for on-board compressed air (RH rock slider serves as air tank)
Engel 12v refridgerator freezer from Expedition Exchange
Rock sliders welded to the chassis by Rockware
MB accessory privacy curtains for rear side windows
Synthetic lubricants throughout drivetrain
Goodrich stainless steel brake lines from the UK G-wagen Owner's Club
2-stripe white MB springs for enhanced load bearing capacity
255/85-16 tires on 6" wide steel wheels from 461 G-wagen
Garmin StreetPilot 3 GPS system with remote antenna on the roof
CB Radio from Radio Shack w. spare carrier mounted antenna
Sony in-dash CD player with 4 Polk speakers
650 watt power inverter

Future modification plans include:

Lower ratio transmisison
Uprated drive shafts
Side mounted awning for roof rack
Modular cargo packing system for rear loadspace

That's about it for me. Please send me your own information so we can feature your rig here soon! In the mean time, here are a few more pictures of a couple of the modifications:

York Compressor