Few legendary nameplates have survived to my adulthood. The cars that ruled the world, the BMW M3s and the Supras and the GT-Rs and the S2000s and the Evos and the Integra Type R, they’ve all either died or lived long enough to become shadows of their former selves. Yet by linking its greatness directly to the march of technology, the Mercedes S-Class has maintained its crown for decades as the ultimate luxury spaceship. Having the same team put their prowess to use on an SUV should have yielded the most incredible vehicle on the planet. It didn’t.
At least, not in base trim. The GLS450 I tested with its $88,010 asking price falls at the low end of a spectrum that's high end is in the $170,000 range. That money buys you a GLS600 Maybach, a palatial rig that probably gets a lot closer to the opulence I expect from an S-tier Mercedes. But that’s not an excuse, as the beauty of the S-Class is it was brilliant and lavish long before the Maybach brand came along and it’s plenty plush without an extra badge on the C pillar.
Mercedes-Benz GLS450
Of course, the S-Class also starts at $112,150 delivered, a cool $33,250 more than the $78,900 entry point of the GLS line. In a world where every other SUV costs more than its sedan counterpart, the gap there is staggering. But the logic appears transparent. The GLS has to be a large Mercedes SUV built for families. The S-Class has to be the best car in the world. So you can’t buy one any cheaper, because a cheaper version wouldn’t blow your mind.
The GLS proves this point. My tester, near as it was to a six-figure price, did not have adaptive cruise control. You can’t buy an S-Class or even a Honda Accord without it these days, but it’s an option here that wasn’t selected. The incredible mutli-contour massaging seats from the S-Class also require an upcharge, which would be fine if the standard seats were exceptional. Instead they’re fine. Even second-row side airbags are optional.
None of this is mission-critical, and all of it is in service of making the GLS more accessible to families. The only issue is that this is supposed to be the S-Class of SUVs, and so much of the magic of the S-Class is the feeling that it was built by a company that was going to do it right, whatever the cost. Sitting in the GLS, with its more pedestrian cabin and cheaper plastic stalks, you get a distinct whiff of good enough.
It is, of course, good enough. In the company of its peers, the GLS is still a nice place to be. The interior design is more interesting, though less user-friendly than the BMW X7, and there’s more solidity here than you get in the body-on-frame competition. It’s quiet, too, a tick louder with the acoustic package than the exceptionally serene X7, but even the last S-Class can’t match the big Bimmer in Car and Driver highway noise testing. Body control and steering precision are both excellent given the application, the GLS easy to spur up the twistiest California canyon without ever losing its composure.
It’s on the low-speed city streets where I take issue with the suspension. The ride is acceptable, the kind of thing that any first-time Mercedes buyer would accept without question, but anyone who’s driven an S-Class will realize that this isn’t in the same echelon. The GLS is both harsher over big impacts and more unsettled over minor imperfections than its sedan sibling, due likely to some combination of its more rudimentary base-model suspension and its 3-inch shorter wheelbase. I thought SUVs were supposed to be bigger.
Despite the marketing department’s best attempts, no one outside of Mercedes who's experienced both views the GLS with the same natural awe as the S-Class. To make an SUV that lived up to those standards would have required a base price somewhere above $120,000, cutting the relevance and sales volumes of this model exponentially. At the same time, it would have affirmed what the S-Class has always sought to prove. That if you buy the top-end Mercedes, you get a vehicle that is unquestionably the most sophisticated, pampering, well-considered vehicle on Earth. For all its merits, the non-Maybach GLS doesn’t come close to that.
Arguably the most fickle member of the Road & Track staff, Reviews Editor Mack Hogan is likely the only person to ever cross shop an ND Miata with an Isuzu Vehicross. He founded the automotive reviews section of CNBC during his sophomore year of college and has been writing about cars ever since.
