2009 Mercedes-Benz GLK by Legendary Motorcar Company
By Andrew C., 27 Aug, 2010. 0 Comments
GLK by Legendary Motorcar Company
Legendary Motorcar, which is more usually linked to race car fabrication and vintage car restoration scene than with custom-tuning of road cars, then set about designing a vehicle that can both bring enthusiasts to far-flung locations and participate actively in the sport itself. Core to the job done on the GLK is the gas-powered tow winch built into the rear of the vehicle. The "Grinch Winch" is growing in status within the extreme sports community, able to tow boarders of any description at estimated speeds of up to 50 km/h. It can conveniently be transferred to either the front or the rear of the vehicle and has a hand throttle speed adjustment. However, it is one thing to use a vehicle for towing a boarder and it's quite another to incorporate the vehicle into the boarding experience. The Rock Crawler also highlights a removable ramp system, side and roof-mounted grinding rails and a custom push bar.
Chief Engineer on the project is Ken Stewart, who specializes in creating race cars for Legendary. He said, "We set out to make the Rock Crawler do something that vehicles were never intended to do. And the GLK was perfectly suited to the task. It's not too large and has great interior space for mounting the kind of equipment we needed. It also has this young, active image and the grinding rails work really well with its aggressive styling." Legendary utilized stainless steel bars to make the roof and swing-out side-mounted grinding rails.
Employing the winch and ramp combo to get airborne, boarders then "grind" or "jib" their boards along the length of the vehicle before rejoining with the ground, snow or water at the other end. A Perspex panel fixed to the roof of the Rock Crawler shields the GLK's panorama sliding roof from boarding debris or from ill-timed boarders themselves. A folding roof-mounted light bar also allows the Rock Crawler to offer play area illumination for its sporting buddies. To highlight the visual effect of the Rock Crawler, Legendary worked with graphics desginer Ron Gibbs to produce striking imagery against the background of the GLK's standard Arctic white paint finish.
The detailing works together with the clean lines of the GLK's exterior design and adds prominence to the Rock Crawler's extreme sporting qualifications. Although the other specialists in the competition decided to reduce the GLK's ride height and augment wheel size for appearance or performance reasons, Legendary realized, in order to attain the go-anywhere temperament of the Rock Crawler, ride height would have to be increased by 38mm and wheel size would have to go down. 19 inch rims are standard in the GLK but, working with National Four Wheel Drive, Legendary opted for the 18 inch Jesse James Black-Widow rims for more all-terrain potential and to incorporate the extra rubber on the Toyo Open Country AT mudder tires. In the meantime, ride height was augmented with custom-built spacers on the lower control arm at the rear and billet aluminum spacers at the front.
Latest Auto Shows
