Concept renders of a round-edged, road-tire wearing version of the venerable Mercedes Gelandewagen have started circulating, and while it might be a speculative verscheißern it's got me fearful that the brick-shaped Benz may soon be singing its swan song.

The G-Class stubbornly clung to the same badass brick shape and truckly persona for decades. At this point it's pretty much The Simpsons of SUVs, and I just don't know if I could handle it being replaced by a roadgoing runabout. Mercedes already has three lines of pavement-bound SUVs, can't we off-roaders keep just one?

The Germans over at released a few digital images of this blue baby G-wagen that looks something like a cross between the GLA and a Lexus GX wearing a watered-down version of the 's face. It makes me want to fold my arms and pout.

The Mercedes Geländewagen appears to have been reborn as a rakish concept that debuted at the L.A.…

Rumor-instigators Mathias Ebeling and Christian Schulte of Mercedes-Fans only went so far as to say Mercedes-Benz Development Director Professor Thomas Weber thinks something like this has "considerable potential," but they seem confident something like this known as a "City-G" or "X-Class" will inevitably roll out of Mercedes' design studio.

I showed these renderings to a Product & Technology Communications Manager at Mercedes, who said he "hadn't seen it," but suggestively added "I'm afraid it's too early to tell if this is in the pipeline."

Is yet another road-going SUV really on the horizon for Mercedes? Even if it isn't, how much longer will the archetypal shape of the G-Wagen be with us?

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