Representative image: a 1999 Mercedes-Benz G500 Cabriolet, a gray-market import, not the S-KLUB truck. Photo: Mr.choppers / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
The tan two-door 1999 Mercedes-Benz G500 that turned up in Drake’s Instagram feed last week was advertised for $399,999 in March. On Wednesday, Oct. 14, it was still on its builder’s for-sale page.
Drake posted it on Oct. 9 as two frames in a 16-image carousel. The caption, “Word to jimmy brooks you can’t spin a spinner,” is a nod to his old Degrassi character. It doesn’t name the truck, its builder or Mercedes.
In one frame, Drake stands next to the truck on a lawn in front of a row of tan dome tents. In the other, the camera looks straight at the grille, where an OVO owl medallion replaces the three-pointed star. The star on the hood stayed. The rest of the carousel is horses, fuel tanks, a pool, a GMC compact SUV with its hood up, and a flagpole flying the U.S., Texas and Canadian flags, the same kind of ranch scenery he posted alongside a Texas truck in early 2025.
What S-KLUB says it built
The truck comes from S-KLUB LA, a Southern California shop that calls itself a “private coach design studio” and lists show-car roots going back to the mid-1990s. Its gallery page names the build “1999 Mercedes-Benz G500 Europa Edition” with the subtitle “S Klub Safari.”
According to that page, the shop cut and restructured the body into a two-door, added custom widebody fenders, a full safari roof rack and HELLA lighting, and painted it desert tan. Behind the doors there’s no roof, just an open deck with rails, and a light bar rides on the rack above the windshield.
The stereo gets its own bullet list: Audison Thesis speakers, DSP Forza amplifiers and four 10-inch subwoofers. The mechanical side gets nothing. A 1999 G500 left the factory with a 5.0-liter V8, and the page doesn’t say whether that engine, the suspension or the brakes were touched. It also doesn’t say how many doors the truck started with or whether the wheelbase changed. Drake’s side view shows a long open deck behind the two doors, which suggests the chassis kept its length.
The $399,999 listing
On March 26, duPont Registry posted the truck on Threads as “Now available for $399,999.” That post describes carbon-fiber accents and 24-inch HRE wheels. S-KLUB’s own page mentions neither, and in Drake’s photos the truck sits on polished wheels wrapped in tall-sidewall tires.
S-KLUB’s “Cars for Sale” page still carried a “G-WAGON EUROPA SAFARI EDITION” entry on Oct. 14, with a photo of the tan truck, no price and a request to contact the shop. That listing doesn’t say whether the truck is sold.
No document we found says Drake owns it. His caption doesn’t, S-KLUB’s pages don’t, and we found nothing from Mercedes-Benz about the truck.
What “Europa” means
S-KLUB calls the G500 “Europa-imported” and leaves it there. Mercedes didn’t sell the G500 through U.S. dealers until the 2002 model year, so a 1999 example in America got here through an independent importer.
Federal records name an importer called Europa. Europa International, Inc., of Santa Fe, New Mexico, NHTSA registered importer R-91-002, won a 1995 ruling that made the long-wheelbase 1995 G320 eligible for U.S. import. In a 2001 Federal Register notice, Europa described itself as the “final stage manufacturer” of the 1999 and later Gelaendewagens it imported, while objecting to a rival importer’s petition for 1999-2000 models. NHTSA approved the rival anyway after it showed its modifications matched those in Europa’s approved 1998 petition.
That makes “Europa” a provenance claim for a 1999 G500, and the conversion paperwork is what backs it up. Neither S-KLUB’s page nor the March listing mentions a VIN, a compliance label or a federalization file. For a G500 cut down from its factory body, those papers are what a buyer, a lender or a state titling office would ask to see.
Open-top Gs keep finding their way to Drake. In 2024 he picked up a Brabus Crawler, one of 15. For scale on chopped-roof G pricing, Brabus asks more than €1 million with VAT for its 900 Rocket Edition Cabrio G 63.
The next thing to watch is S-KLUB’s for-sale page. If the Europa Safari entry comes down or gets a “sold” tag, that’s the closest thing to a bill of sale the public is likely to see. Would you pay $399,999 for a 1999 G500 that a SoCal shop cut down to two doors, or is a chopped G only worth that kind of money with Brabus on the badge?
Sources: Drake’s Instagram post of Oct. 9, 2026; S-KLUB LA gallery and for-sale pages; duPont Registry’s March 26, 2026, Threads listing; Federal Register notices of Jan. 4, 1995, and April 24, 2001.
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