W460 AMG G 5.6 Sport Widebody
A member of a small G-Wagan forum recently asked for help to find out more about an interesting W460 pre-merger AMG G-Class. At first glance it sounded almost impossible — early AMG conversions usually don’t appear anywhere on the Mercedes datacard because AMG worked very differently back then.
In the 1980s, a customer typically bought a normal Mercedes-Benz from a dealer, delivered the car to AMG in Affalterbach, and AMG modified it according to the customer’s wishes.
As a result, there is rarely anything pointing directly to AMG anywhere on the datacard.
The car in question was believed to be a W460 AMG G 5.6 Sport Widebody. All I had were 2 blurry period photos (pic 1,2), rumors that the car once appeared in a Japanese magazine and a few VINs of other 1980s AMG V8 conversions which were for sale or appeared somewhere in the past.
Initially, I thought the vehicle might be extremely early — perhaps around 1979 or 1980 — because one of the black-and-white AMG photos looked very old stylistically. But then I noticed something important:
the car had the thicker front indicator spacer bases introduced on later W460s.
That detail effectively ruled out the “1979 prototype” theory.
For a while I even suspected that WDB46023317063078 a known AMG V8 conversion, could be the actual car from the photos as it has very similar specs - silver colour, no headlight washers, protective grills for headlamps, mudflaps, gray interior, rear window wiper and thick indicator spacers.
The first real breakthrough came when I found an AMG brochure containing a dated press photo (pic 3) from the AMG Presse 09/87 brochure
The brochure clearly dated the vehicle to September 1987.
That immediately narrowed the search dramatically.
Instead of searching the entire production history of the W460, we could now focus on:
silver W460.233.1s, built roughly between chassis numbers 50,000–60,000 which means vehicles produced between January and September 1987. It also rulled out WDB46023317063078 which has a 1988 order code so could not be on a photo made in September 1987.
Another interesting detail was that the AMG brochure mentioned the 345/60VR17 tires. It didn´t light a warning light immediatelly but a friend has noticed this unusual size and than we have realised that those are Lamborghini LM002 tires which were produced since 1986.
One VINs became especially interesting: WDB46023317055020 built for Abu Dhabi, delivered on August 13th 1987, finished in 9735 astral silver like the car on the photo, same as the previously known WDB46023317063078 and another RHD AMG V8 WDB46023327047390 previously owned by Al-Maktoom family´s UK stables. Then there were interesting options like fast axle (A11) and two auxilary 13.5 litre gas tanks (K87), both important when converting a W460 to V8. Even more interesting were the engine and gearbox numbers reading like this:
110994 10 000000
711101 10 000000
Just type but no serial number.
There was another truck WDB46023317059934 with the 293 internal delivery code (usually cars delivered to MB´s partner companies like Binz, AMG, Miesen or Brabus to be finised by them) and very similar specs but again 1988 order code so again too old to appaear in a 1987 brochure. More on that one later.
The next major breakthrough came when I visited a Mercedes-Benz dealer and asked them to dig deeper into their system. The system revealed that WDB46023317055020 had been built under a Text order (Z99) BFS 953.
After finding this I have emailed MB G GmbH Graz directly and in a short time I have recieved confirmation that BFS 953 was an AMG special order, and the vehicle had been delivered without engine and transmission.
At that point it became clear that WDB46023317055020 was not a normal production G-Wagen.
The guy who was looking for the vehicle also mentioned that somebody told him that the AMG G 5.6 Sport Widebody was featured in some period Japanese magazine. Here I was lucky and I have discovered an ad offering 1987 and 1988 issues of the Japanese magazine The Special Cars.
In the 2nd issue of 1988 (pic 5) there is an article titled AMG G Wagen 6.0 (pic 6), which mentions AMG suspension modifications and steering feel, Pirelli tires and acceleration comparable to a 5-liter S-Class.
The photos also showed a LB- Ludwigsburg registration plate and rural German scenery but what is more interesting it also shows different wheels with silver centers then those on the 1987 photos and different foglight covers. That and the fact that they called the car 5.6 in the 1987 brochure and 6.0 in the Japanese article makes me think that maybe 2 Widebody trucks were built and brings me back to WDB46023317059934 and WDB46023317063078 with very similar spec as WDB46023317055020.
So guys do you think it is possible to get any further to find out more about the truck? Or maybe somebody knows it? Or maybe I have made a mistake somewhere and the W460 AMG G 5.6 Sport Widebody has nothing to do with WDB46023317055020?
Thank you in advance for any constructive comments.
P.S.
I have also found a photo of what should be the interior of the G 5.6 Sport Widebody (pic 7) on the Russian G forum but I can´t find the original source. Maybe it´s from the Japanese article or from some other brochure. If anybody knows it or even has a scan, please let me know.