MERCEDES GLS
Comes with proper off-road
hardware to help you cross
mountains and wade riversTOPGEAR.COM → JULY 2019 049
of quite literally leaning into corners to negate body roll.
It stays incredibly flat through corners. The steering feel
is spot on and has the right weight. And if that doesn’t
float your boat, you’ve got the Sport mode that weighs it
up even further. You may feel that this 2. 7 -tonne beast
may be frowning at the sight of a mountain road. But
surprisingly, it behaves well and as I said before, keeps
things composed and doesn’t throw any surprises at you
at any point of time.
For the western markets, Merc offers a six-cylinder
petrol and a diesel, and an eight-cylinder petrol. Yes, you
guessed it right – India will get only the six-pot mills. The
petrol is a 3. 0 -litre in-line one that’s badged as ‘ 450 ’. It
churns out 365 bhp and 500 Nm. It’s more than adequate
for this size of a vehicle. And taking things forward from
the smaller SUVs and sedans, it’s got the EQ Boost that
gives 250 Nm of torque to fill in the gap before the turbo
kicks in. With all that, the power delivery remains smooth
and void of any unexpected surges. It’s silky smooth and
loads of torque gives the 450 the ability to hit a ton in 6. 2
seconds and a top whack of almost 250 kph.
The diesel is also a 3. 0 -litre unit that’s good for 328 bhp
and, take a deep breath, 700 Nm of spin. And I’ve not even
come to the best part of things here – it can produce the
max torque at just over idle (at 1200 rpm). All that grunt
gives it the ability to make it almost as quick as the petrol.
Both the engines are mated to a nine-speed transmission
that does a fine job of distributing the right amount of
torque to the wheel that needs it the most. In the case of
the diesel and the petrol, the transmission’s wide variety
of cogs gives it the flexibility to keep the revs low even at
highway speeds.
As a package, the GLS packs in a lot of punch and gives
you no reason to complain. It’s got the right toys in the
cabin, right tech to keep you going just fine on and off
the road and an ambience you’d seen only in the S-Class
before. There’s an electric this and an electric that, which
gives you no reason to use more than three muscles to do
anything and everything. Mercedes has prepped the GLS
well enough to compete with its new rivals – the BMW
X 7 and the Audi Q 8 – and I’d say it’s even knocking on the
doors of the Range Rover. Just the way an American calls
his land ‘the greatest country in the world’; the guys at
Mercedes have a good enough reason to call this ‘the best
SUV in the world’.‘MERCEDES HAS
PREPPED THE GLS
WELL ENOUGH TO
COMPETE WITH ITS
N EW R IVALS’
PHOTOGRAPHY: MANUFACTURER
It gets e-Active Body Control to
keep it flat through bends and
offer a magic carpet ride