Magna Steyr Will Build G-Klasse Until 2015

Mercedes Benz's G-Klasse model, Carlsson's and RENNtech's favorite car to mess around with, will continue to see production until the end of 2015, Reuters reported. The Austrian contract manufacturer Magna Steyr will continue to build the old car, despite the decline in sales registered over the past year.

"The G-Class has a high symbolic value for automobile production in Styria, since it has been built in Graz for the past 30 years," Siegfried Wolf , Magna Steyr CEO said in a statement. "Magna has the strongest balance sheet in the supplier industry, with net cash reserves of more than 1.5 billion euros," added the official.

Magna Steyr engineers, develops and assembles automobiles for other companies on a contractual basis. Not being a brand of its own, the company is at the mercy of the manufacturers it works for. Recent years have seen a tendency of carmakers to reduce outsourcing and star building the car in-house. Last year, the company built a total of 125,000 vehicles for four different auto brands.

Magna Steyr incorporated Daimler's Eurostar vehicle assembly facility and managed to reach the 200,000 units built mark. The Oberwaltersdorf-based company developed Mercedes-Benz's "4MATIC" all-wheel drive system and assembled all E-Class 4Matic models.

The Mercedes Benz G-Klasse started out as a a military vehicle in early 1970s and became available to the general public in 1979. To mark its 25th anniversary in 2005, the Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG was relaunched as the G55 Kompressor or G55K and received a boost in power. Thanks to the 5.5l supercharged V8 engine, the Mercedes is now able of developing up to 507 horsepower horsepower.