Left: GLS’ cabin really takes your breath
away, the twin 12.3-inch screen being as
high-tech as they come. Above: Via the
touchscreen you can adjust ride height of
individual wheels while off the roadOTHING SAYS YOU’VE MADE IT IN LIFE
as an S-Class pulling up at the kerb and the back
door being swung open for you. There are more
expensive, luxurious, sophisticated and of course
more expensive cars than the big Benz but not
without good reason have we been calling it the
best car in the world. Its single-minded focus
on comfort, on ignoring sporty pretensions, on
shutting you out from the outside world and
leeching out the stress and detritus of daily life...
no car made in any serious volume does it better.
Even a journalist with a race track splattered
across his t-shirt lights up at the sight of an
S-Class, especially after multiple flights from
halfway across the world, the last making a lengthy weather-
related diversion to refuel forcing me to endure an extra four
hours next to a lady who would not stop yammering away. 23
hours since I left for the airport I recline the back seat, turn on the
massage, ask the lady chauffeuring me to crank up the Burmester,
knock my head back into the pillow stuffed with goose feathers,
and let out a sigh. Will the GLS transport me to a better place, as
the S-Class always does?
NEXT MORNING I WAKE UP TO CLEAR SKIES, SNOW-
capped Rockies and an appropriately German-accented tech-talk
on what makes the GLS the S-Class of SUVs. Let’s be honest, the
outgoing GLS was no S-Class of SUVs. The rebadging of the GL to
the GLS in 2015 was timed with the mid-life facelift to the X166
and that wasn’t the best SUV you could buy, forget having S-Class
levels of greatness. This new GLS is really all-new, and even
though cramped was used by precisely nobody to describe the
old GLS, the new one grows in every direction. 60mm is added
between the wheels, the driver has to stretch a further 15mm to
hold hands with the passenger, 87mm is added to the second row
legroom extending it to a total of 1065mm (over a metre! This is
a cricket pitch!), passengers in the third row have 878mm of leg
room, and the boot with all seats (electrically, of course) folded
down is bigger than an average Mumbai flat at 2400 litres. I don’t
T H E G L S
L O O K S
EXPENSIVE
BUT NOT
GARISH IN
T H E W A Y
T H A T M O S T
CARS AND
SUVS ARE
BECOMING