Last year, a Mercedes engineer named Jürgen Eberle got ahold of a Mercedes E-Class All-Terrain, and let his childhood off-road fantasies run wild, installing portal axles and monstrous meaty tires to create what is now called the E-Class All-Terrain 4×4². It’s pure madness.
AutoExpress reports that the 4×4² version of Mercedes’ Audi Allroad started out as a standard E-Class All-Terrain with a little 1.5-inch suspension lift and some extra body cladding. But then Eberle decided to throw in portal axles, a technology also found in Mercedes’ absurd G500 4×4² and even more ridiculous 6×6.
Of course, the portal axles in the E-Class All-Terrain 4×4² are very different than those under the G-wagon, with the former has a multi-link setup all the way around instead of the latter’s solid axles.
This means the suspension doesn’t just look like big metal tubes with gearboxes bolted to their ends (or integrated into the knuckles). Instead, there’s still a multilink setup with air suspension (the geometry had to be heavily reworked from stock, and it actually uses struts from the GLC SUV); here’s a look at how CV axles at each corner mate to the gearboxes on the knuckles:
The purpose of the portal axles is ground clearance, and holy crap does this thing have a ton of it. The standard All-Terrain comes from the factory with six inches between its belly and the dirt; the 4×4²? Over 16 inches. For reference, that’s more ground clearance than a HMMWV or a Mercedes G500 4×4².
Last year, a Mercedes engineer named Jürgen Eberle got ahold of a Mercedes E-Class All-Terrain, and let his childhood off-road fantasies run wild, installing portal axles and monstrous meaty tires to create what is now called the E-Class All-Terrain 4x4². It’s pure madness.
AutoExpress reports that the 4x4² version of Mercedes’ Audi Allroad started out as a standard E-Class All-Terrain with a little 1.5-inch suspension lift and some extra body cladding. But then Eberle decided to throw in portal axles, a technology also found in Mercedes’ absurd G500 4x4² and even more ridiculous 6x6.
Of course, the portal axles in the E-Class All-Terrain 4x4² are very different than those under the G-wagon, with the former has a multi-link setup all the way around instead of the latter’s solid axles.
This means the suspension doesn’t just look like big metal tubes with gearboxes bolted to their ends (or integrated into the knuckles). Instead, there’s still a multilink setup with air suspension (the geometry had to be heavily reworked from stock, and it actually uses struts from the GLC SUV); here’s a look at how CV axles at each corner mate to the gearboxes on the knuckles:
The purpose of the portal axles is ground clearance, and holy crap does this thing have a ton of it. The standard All-Terrain comes from the factory with six inches between its belly and the dirt; the 4x4²? Over 16 inches. For reference, that’s more ground clearance than a HMMWV or a Mercedes G500 4x4².
