Brabus Cuts the Roof Off the G 63, Builds 10 on 24-Inch Wheels

Brabus revealed the 900 Rocket Edition Cabrio on September 23, a four-door convertible built on the current Mercedes-AMG G 63 (W465), and will build ten of them. The 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 is bored out to 4,407 cc for 900 metric horsepower and a peak 1,250 Nm, electronically held to 1,050 Nm in normal delivery. Zero to 100 km/h takes 3.7 seconds, and top speed is capped at 240 km/h to protect the tires. Those tires are 295/30 front and 345/25 rear, on 24-inch Monoblock II EVO wheels that run 12 inches wide at the back.

The roof is the part that changes how this car moves. Brabus says the two-piece soft top required more than 500 newly developed components, opens or closes in 20 seconds, and carries a heated safety-glass rear window. Rigidity comes from a steel C-BOW roll bar welded into a modified body and clad in carbon, plus a carbon roof bow.

The transport angle

Start with the factory numbers, because they set the constraints. A 2026 G 63 stands 77.4 inches tall, measures 78.1 inches wide without mirrors, and weighs 5,842 lb at the curb. Ground clearance is 9.5 inches, so unlike most cars in this price bracket, ramp angle is not the problem. A liftgate is not what this one needs.

Weight and deck position are. Vehicles over about 6,500 lb generally load to the lower deck because trailer-floor ratings exceed upper-deck ratings. A stock G 63 sits under that line, but a welded roll bar, body reinforcement, 500-odd new parts and four 24-inch wheels all add mass rather than remove it. Treat this car as a bottom-deck load and ask for the upper-deck rating in writing if a carrier offers a top-load position anyway.

That creates a tension worth naming. Bottom-deck vehicles are the ones exposed to a slow fluid seep from whatever sits above them, and the usual fix is to buy the top-load position. Here the weight argues down and the fabric roof argues up. The resolution is not a different trailer type, it is a load-plan request: lower deck, with nothing parked directly above. Any dispatcher can honor that if it is on the order before the truck is routed.

Then the tie-downs. A 345/25 rear tire has roughly 3.4 inches of sidewall, and the 295/30 front is not much taller. Over-the-tire soft straps need sidewall to tension against, and there is very little here. Wheel baskets or axle straps are the right call, and the difference between soft and hard tie-downs matters more than usual on a widebody truck riding on 24s. The 78-inch stock width grows with the fenders, which eats the side clearance a loader needs to open a door inside the bay.

What to do about it

Give the broker the as-built numbers, not the catalog ones. Ask the coachbuilder or the selling dealer for finished height, width over the fenders, and curb weight. On a ten-car run, nobody downstream can look those up.

Put four things on the order: enclosed, lower deck, nothing loaded directly above, and soft top closed and latched for the entire move. Carriers in our broker network will note all four, but only if they are written down rather than mentioned on a call.

Sort out declared value before pickup. A ten-unit conversion has no comparable sale to point at, so the build invoice and an agreed-value rider are what stand between you and a settlement argued from G 63 book value. Standard cargo limits on enclosed equipment sit well below what a car like this costs, which is the whole reason to read the coverage terms first.

Finally, plan the pickup point. Cars in this class usually land at a port or a dealer rather than a residential driveway, and a 78-inch-wide truck on 24s needs a flat, open loading area. If the delivery address has a tight approach or a steep apron, say so at booking rather than at the curb. The same holds for any G-Wagon shipment, just with less at stake.