The mid-sized premium SUV fight has been a lucrative one for the motor trade, with Audi’s Q5 dominating proceedings and BMW’s X3 and Range Rover’s Evoque doing their best to stay in touch.
Oddly absent from all that potential volume and profit has been Mercedes-Benz. Usually an expert in spotting a niche, Benz's critical error came when the GLK was designed in left-hand drive only.
Almost 90 countries prefer to drive on "our" side of the road, including the UK, Australia and Japan, so it wasn't as though it was ignoring the irrelevant markets.
Now, though, Benz is serious, with its all-new GLC being touted as a second-generation mid-sized SUV (which it is, even if we never saw the angular first generation).
Due to arrive here in December, the GLC is 12cm longer than the GLK and 17mm longer than the Q5. It promises to make better use of its interior space than the class leader, too, with its 2,873mm wheelbase a full 66mm longer than the Audi’s.
It’s also 10mm wider, at 1890mm, and 11mm lower, at 1639mm. Inside that curvaceous new metal, the GLC will have 550 litres of luggage capacity behind its five-seat layout, with an 1,100mm minimum width at the opening. That pushes out to 1389mm wide further inside, while the maximum length is 1320mm.
There’s a 40:20:40 folding rear seat layout, and dropping it down will increase the luggage capacity to 1,600 litres.
But the GLC is also coming at the class from a standing start, so it needs a bit of impetus that goes beyond styling, which Benz pushes fondly with this new baby.
It will attempt to get that impetus from three conventional powertrains and a plug-in hybrid, which utilizes both petrol and electric motivation.
At the bottom end will be the GLC 220d, with 125kW of power and 400Nm of torque from its 2143cc engine. Mercedes claims it reaches out to 210km/h, gets across the sprint to 100km/h in 8.3 seconds and still posts an NEDC combined fuel economy figure of between 5.0 and 5.5 seconds. If you’re really interested, that gives it a 19 percent economy improvement over the GLK, with emissions down to 129 to 143 grams (depending on the wheel and tyre packages chosen).
Upstream from there, the same 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbodiesel engine delivers 150kW and 500Nm of performance in the GLC 250d, which delivers the exact same economy data while cutting the standard sprint down to 7.6 seconds and raising the top speed to 222km/h.
The petrol-preferers have just one option: the GLC 250 4Matic. Its 1991cc four-cylinder, turbocharged engine delivers 155kW and 350Nm of torque.
It’s the fastest of the three, cutting 0.3 seconds off the 250 d’s sprint time while matching its top speed, but it pays a price in economy. Its NEDC combined figure is 6.5-7.1 litres/100km, pushing the CO2 emissions up to 152-166 grams/km.
Of course, anybody wanting lower emissions than that will have to move to the GKLC 350 e 4Matic, which delivers plug-in power and emits just 60 grams/km. It also happens to be the fastest of the GLC machines, with its two motors combining to boost it to 235km/h by combining the 250’s 155kW powerplant with an 85kW electric motor between the engine and the transmission.
It will have 34km of pure-electric running and will still use both engines to get to 100km/h in 5.9 seconds. It will also have intelligent operating strategies to deliver the best possible economy, combining that with the haptic accelerator pedal that will pulse and wobble to train you when you’re straying beyond the ideal ways to drive for economy.
It shares its multi-link rear end with the C-Class, yet there is an optional Air Body Control to deliver more accurate, smoother-riding air suspension and can still pull the body 15mm closer to the road in Sport mode. The standard setup uses steel springs in concert with variable damping control.
There’s also an Off-Road Engineering package, which will use the Air Body Control’s flexibility to add 50mm to the ride height and soften the spring rate.
It will deliver Eco, Comfort, Sport, Sport+ and Individual packages as standard equipment, while you get another click with the Off-Road Engineering package.
That increases its ability on light off-road terrain, like gravel and sandy tracks and there’s also an underbody guard and hill-descent control (though Benz doesn’t call it that).
It drives normally with the rear end receiving 55 percent of the all-wheel drive’s front-to-rear torque split, though it can vary almost instantly thanks to a multiple-plate clutch in the centre differential.
Then there is the variability and choice within the badge, and there are three different front bumper bars available, depending on what you want your GLC to say about you. Its standard rubber sits on an 18-inch wheel, but it can go up to 20-inches if people want them.
