The off-road ability is seriously impressive, no doubt about
that, and there’s even an off-road score where the GLS rates you
on your off-road driving. Low-range nearly triples the torque at
the wheels, the off road package lets you raise the GLS by 90mm,
and that means you just have to breathe on the throttle to have
it chugging up rocky slopes. Engineers claim that if you give the
G-Wagen a 10/10 off road score, GLS would rate 9/10, but on the
upside the GLS would score 20/10 on comfort compared to the
G’s live axles. In fact the GLS is so easy to drive off-road that your
grandma will be able to take the shortcuts up Himalayan passes
that only the bravest Thar drivers with their mud tyres and what
not will attempt.
But most impressive is the ride quality. You feel nothing! It’s
incredible how the GLS flattens everything in its path!
E-Active Body Control uses cameras to read the road ahead
and individually controls the springing and damping forces
at each wheel. Running on a 48-volt system, the primary aim
of the E-ABC system is to keep the body flat using the sky hook
controlling mode that pulls up the wheels over bumps or pushes
it down into potholes so the body — and thus the occupants —
do not move, no matter what the road looks like. It works like a
dream, reading the road ahead, responding in 20 milliseconds
and priming each wheel before we even hit the rough patch. We
barrel down the off road track like we are driving a rally car and
the GLS absolutely flattens the ruts and humps and the result is
zero heaving and pitching of what must be a very heavy nose and
absolutely mind-boggling ride comfort. This system is an option
but, considering the condition of our regular roads, forget the
off-road tracks, it absolutely must be standard on the India-spec
SUVs. It also works at night, scanning the road lit up by the 112
LEDs per headlight that produce the maximum light intensity
permitted by law.
The E-ABC also adds another function to the GLS — Curve
Control. Activate it via the drive mode controller and the GLS
actively leans into bends by up to three degrees in three stages,
like a motorcycle and thus reducing the lateral g-forces on the
occupants. This, again, is more a comfort than a handling feature,
making enthusiastic cornering easy on passengers.
For the driver Curve Control feels unnatural and doesn’t do
anything to enhance the cornering ability. That said the body
control is significantly improved over the roly-poly old GLS thanks
to the hydraulic sway bars replacing physical anti-roll bars. Using
the lightning quick responses of electric 48V pump (instead of
the belt-driven hydraulic pump), the dampers respond faster to
cornering loads to cut out body roll. At slow speeds the GLS is
set up to be more agile but that results in a nervous behaviour at
higher speeds so the system alters the characteristics with speed.
And the Sport mode also stiffens the rear sway bar to mimic an
oversteer effect and thus deliver more agile cornering. The system
also recovers energy every time the damper moves, deploying it
for that momentary instant when peak power is required. The
damper is thus a mild hybrid! It all delivers a marked setup up
on the handling performance of the old GLS and body roll is no
longer an irritant but the segment benchmark remains the BMW
X7 and its (old) M3-matching Nurburgring lap time. The X7 also
has better steering response, steering comfort as BMW calls it,
than the GLS.
The GLS gets the world’s first V8 with an integrated starter
generator, what Mahindra and Maruti call mild hybrid though
Mercedes engineers were bewildered by our description as to
them a car is either a full hybrid or not a hybrid. The V8 petrol
will not come to India so we restricted ourselves to the straight-6
turbo-petrol that comes standard with the 48V on-board
electric system that runs the water pump and air-conditioning
compressor and the ISG supplies energy back to the battery via
energy recuperation. The so-called EQ boost adds (for short
periods) an additional 22bhp to the peak power of 362bhp and
an extra 250Nm to the peak torque of 500Nm, dropping the
0-100kmph time to 6.2 seconds and getting the 2.45 tonne GLS
450 to a top speed of 250kmph. On the road it is silky smooth and
takes on a surprisingly good guttural growl when given the beans
but it doesn’t feel very quick or enthusiastic. As for the diesel,
India will most likely get the straight-six 350d with 282bhp,
600Nm of torque and a 0-100kmph time of seven seconds along
with a top whack of 227kmph. The diesels do not yet get the ISG
but that will come in time for the GLS’s launch in India and, trust
me, you really do want to spend the extra money for ISG and thus
the 48V system to drive what is the game changer, the E-Active
Body Control. It delivers what is a truly remarkable ride quality,
reducing the body movements by half over the standard Airmatic.
I have not driven anything that flattens bad roads and dismisses
surface imperfections with such disdain, and that includes the
S-Class. Comfort will be the single biggest reason why the GLS
will steamroll rivals when it comes to India next year, that and an
enormously spacious and beautifully kitted out cabin.
For long, the S-Class of SUVs was a mere marketing tag line. No
longer. The GLS now takes the Range Rover and BMW X7 head on
for the Best SUV in the World honours. LCOMFORT WILL BE
THE SINGLE BIGGEST
REASON WHY THE GLS
WILL STEAMROLL ITS
R I V A L S