Visit: Mercedes-Benz US International
I’d never been to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Mercedes was dangling the prospect of a factory visit in front of me, so I signed up. I almost never turn down a chance to walk through a factory. There’s nothing like seeing the thing being made up close to put the car business in perspective. Watching the process from stamped metal to endless expanse of cars awaiting shipping, and understanding that they’d be on dealer lots in a few days and in driveways not long after that, makes it real in a way that looking at sales numbers can’t.
Mercedes-Benz has been in Tuscaloosa since 1997, the ML, a car seared into my brain by its pre-production appearance in 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park, was made there. Five million Mercedes M-Class and GL-Class SUVs have left Tuscaloosa since then, with 60%of them leaving the US for homes abroad. Every German I talked to had nice things to say about Tuscaloosa. CEO Ola Källenius was particularly a fan, he worked at the plant in the 90s and became an Alabama football superfan.
We arrived at the Mercedes-Benz Visitor Center to find one of the Jurassic Park ML 320s parked out front, along with the 1996 AAV concept from that year’s NAIAS, a Patent Motor Wagen replica, and an early (possibly the first?) ML 320 that had been signed by plant employees. The MLs are small and spartan by modern standards, have a selectable low range and are body-on-frame. If you could find a well-cared-for example it’d make an appealing vintage SUV.
After speeches by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Senators Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt that were, it must be said, confusing, we were shuttled over to the plant to see the debut of the new SUVs. In a dramatically darkened corner of the factory, Alabama’s Million Dollar Band played under red and blue stage lights while a drone the size of a VHS tape circled overhead. Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius teamed up with former University of Alabama head football coach and current Mercedes-Benz dealer Nick Saban to reveal the GLE and GLS.
This is the second refresh of the W167 GLE (coupes are designated C167) and it’s extensive. There’s a new operating system and a water cooled processor, bigger screens including the huge MBUX Superscreen, more sensors and cameras and a more capable assistant. GLS gets an upright star logo like the S-Class, a new grille, and star signature lighting elements in the headlights and tail lights. There are revised engines across the range, new wheels, and new paint options. Mercedes said more than 3,000 components are either new or revised. In the American market, the GLE was the best-selling Mercedes-Benz product last year at more than 56,000 units.
On the factory floor, we saw both current model and facelifted GL-Series being assembled. Like I said above, if you ever get a chance to check out a car manufacturing facility, do it. If you’re a white collar worker, even if you cosplay as a guy who builds stuff with his hands, there is something about seeing industrial work at scale. I’m not going to romanticize it; it’s hard work, and the people who do it deserve to be well compensated for their labor. But, the level of thought, the coordination and craft required to mass produce something like a car profitably is really astonishing when you think about it. Seeing it up close brings it home.
This wasn’t a drive program, but we were invited to tag along with a Mercedes driver on the Tuscaloosa plant’s off-road course. I’d always thought of the GL-Series as more of a road-focused crossover than a capable off-roader like the G-Class, which of course, it is. I was surprised to see it boogie up and down 70% grades, find grip going uphill with three wheels spinning on a set of rollers, and demonstrate solid off-road geometry. Again, it’s not a G-glass, but it can be had with an Off-Road package and will deliver more off-road capability than you’re likely to need.
We ended the day in a massive warehouse, getting a look at the AMG versions of the G-Class. Aside from the styling refresh, the 4.0-liter V8 gets the most notable updates. A flat-plane crankshaft, redesigned intake and exhaust ports, and a mild hybrid system were added for emissions compliance reasons and for reduced vibration and improved throttle response. The hybrid system adds 23 hp and 153 ft-lb of torque to the total output, 603 hp and 627 ft-lb of torque. There’s a new adjustable exhaust and a rear locking differential, Mercedes says the AMG GLS 63 will run to 60 in 4.1 seconds, we’ll try to confirm that for you at some point.
Mercedes-Benz has been building cars in the U.S. since the late 1800s, but this Alabama plant changed the company’s relationship with America and really, the world. It’s now fully a part of the community in Tuscaloosa, maybe not to the degree that the University of Alabama is, but it’s a big deal. A lot of foreign companies build cars in the U.S. now and as Chinese companies seem more certain than ever to follow, it’s hard to imagine a better model for them to follow than Mercedes-Benz U.S. International.
Recent Posts
All Posts
June 8, 2026
June 5, 2026
June 4, 2026
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.