World debut: Mercedes-Benz GLC

The mid-size premium SUV fight has been a hot one in Australia, with Audi’s Q5 dominating proceedings to become the nation's top-selling luxury SUV bar none 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 a bloodhound of a niche sniffer, 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 and Japan, so it wasn’t as though it was ignoring irrelevant markets.

Now though, Benz is serious, with its all-new GLC being touted as a second-generation mid-size SUV (which it is, even if we never saw the angular first generation).

Making its world debut in Germany overnight and due to arrive here in December, it will be hot on the heels of the ML’s replacement, the September-slotted GLE and its swoopier new GLE Coupe sibling, and priced to compete directly with the Q5 and X3, which both open at less than $63,000.

At 4656mm long, the GLC is 12cm longer than the GLK but just 17mm longer than the Q5. It promises to make better use of its interior space than the class leader, too, with its 2873mm 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 1100mm 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 1600 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 utilises both petrol and electric motivation.

At the bottom end will be the GLC 220 d 4MATIC, with 125kW of power and 400Nm of torque from its 2143cc turbo-diesel. Benz 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 5.5L/100km. If you’re really interested, that gives it a 19 per cent economy improvement over the GLK, with CO2 emissions down to 129 to 143g/km (depending on the wheel and tyre packages chosen).

Upstream from there, the same 2.1-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine delivers 150kW and 500Nm of performance in the GLC 250 d 4MATIC, 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.

From launch, petrol-preferers will 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 6.5-7.1L/100km, pushing the CO2 emissions up to 152-166g/km.

Of course, anybody wanting lower emissions than that will have to move to the GLC 350 e 4MATIC, which delivers plug-in power and emits just 60g/km. It also happens to be the fastest of the GLC machines, with its two motors producing 235kW 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.

Benz has so much faith in it that it’s replacing the former flagship, the GLK 350 4MATIC, though the downside is that the underfloor battery pulls the luggage capacity down to 350 litres/1445 litres.

It helps the economy that the SUV is 80kg lighter than the GLK variants, with 50kg of that coming from the mix of aluminium, high- and ultra-high strength steels.

A big chunk of the rest of it comes from using a new nine-speed automatic transmission as standard, which comes wrapped in a magnesium casing, saving 12kg on the predecessor.

The GLC 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 set-up 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 per cent 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 is an 18-inch wheel, but it can go up to 20-inch if people want them.

There are also optional LED headlights, while the rear lights are LED as standard.

The GLC takes its inside lead from the bigger, three-month older GLE, with an airy interpretation of Benz’s new-found love of high-end materials on its volume models leading the charge.

There’s a one-piece panel from the console to the central vents to the rear seats, while it also gets Benz’s high-end touchpad and handrest above the rotary multimedia dial.