Top Car

January 2016 |TOPCAR.CO.ZA 55Road test: Mercedes-BenzGLE 450 AMG CoupeIFE ISCONSTANTLYchanging. Not a veryprofound thought, Iknow, but all youneed do is take a lookthrough your kitchencupboards to see whatI mean. In there youmay find a brightly coloured box ofFuturelifebreakfast ‘cereal’. Aside from thesmart font and the promise of a few moreOmegas, how much does it really differfrom a box ofJungle Oats? The same goesfor that once-white, now pale-yellowblender in the bottom draw – not muchdifferent from a shiny metallicNutribullet,is it? They both blend stuff, surely.It all boils down to an issue of packagingand brand attribution... and, of course,newer is better. Product developers theworld over know it’s the one with th e slick``````design and clearly defined market ingmessage you want. Exactly the samethinking now appl ies to the once-humbleSUV.``````Annex the SUVThe idea of a four-d oor coupe started withsedans a decade ago before spreading toSUVs with th e first BMW X6.Now there’sMerc’s GLE Coupe, soon tobe joined by thesmaller GLC Coupe. I take no umbragewith th e idea – if your job is scribbling carsfor a living at a design studio in LosAngeles, how else are you going to enliventhe old, slab-sided SUV. Anyone who’s seenan older-generation ML will immediatelyrecognise it’s the knackered blender in thebottom draw desper ately in need of amakeover. I know judging the aestheticscan be su bjective, but there’s no doubttheGLE Coupe turns heads. While I’ll admitthe sheer girth can look ungainly fromL