Reviews/ Long Term/ Mercedes-Benz GLE 450 4MATIC | Jun 2025

Mercedes-Benz GLE 450 4MATIC | Jun 2025

The year was 1997. One of the world's best-selling novels was about a boy wizard who hadn't yet seen a film adaptation, and Mercedes-Benz quietly invented the luxury SUV. Not the first to go off-road with leather seats, but the first to realise most buyers never would. That first ML ditched locking diffs and chunky tyres for comfort and ease, setting the template for what this segment would become. It wasn't built to clamber over boulders in Karjat. It felt far more at home in a posh office in BKC.

I was born the following year. Which means the Mercedes GLE, as it's now called, has been around my entire life. The only thing we share is that we've both grown fatter and more sophisticated with age. But here's the headline: it's excellent. Not thrilling. Not game-changing. But deeply, supremely competent. It's powered by a 3.0-litre straight-six petrol with mild hybrid tech. But it goes like stink, shifts gears like butter, and doesn't make you feel like you're burning down a forest every time you floor it. The Ed with an AMG can't say the same, can he?

And then there's the "ENERGISING" Package. Honestly, Mercedes has built a car that freshens the air with something called "Ocean Breeze" and lights up the cabin like a boutique spa in Udaipur. At some point, it even tried to coach me into breathing better. My car. Coaching me. Utterly ridiculous. And brilliant.

It does get the AMG line package, but it doesn't want to set a Nürburgring time - it will easily do 200 kmph with four inside. But honestly, it just wants to make your life easier. The seats cool your arse in the heat. The boot opens if you wave your foot. The air suspension floats in Comfort mode. The MBUX infotainment is the best in the segment. Overall, it's better than the X5. Nicer than the Q7. Calmer than a Range Rover. And less beige than a Volvo XC90. 

It's been 27 years since the M-Class arrived and, with a nudge, changed the shape of the luxury SUV landscape. Today it's called the GLE, wears a blingier suit, and has traded ambition for assurance. The disruption is long done. What's impressive is that, even now, it remains the benchmark in the very segment it helped invent.