Video: 2016 Mercedes-Benz GLE 450 - First Look

Mercedes also calls this a coupe, so don't tell them it has two rear doors, either way the GLE replaces the M-Class and from a styling and packaging standpoint appears to take on cars like the BMW X6. Let's take a look inside and out. Familiar face given what Mercedes has done to a lot of its recent cars, kind of a gently rising BeltLine here, fairly dramatic rise in how the windows kind of come up here toward the roof line and sort of gently here toward the tail, which all sort of comes together here. A lot of deja VU, because you've seen this already. It's in the BMW X6, even the tail is you look at how horizontal it is with the tail lights, all of these horizontal kind of themes here. Again, very familiar territory here. Now, 21 or 22 inch wheels here, check out these rear tires, 325 millimeters wide, a lot of traction there. It makes sense because in the cars that we're going to see here in the states, at least initially a GLI 450 AMG sport, or a Mercedes AMG GLE 63 minimum horsepower, at least 362 horsepower. So it'll need a lot of traction to get that power to the ground. A mix of some old and some new in terms of the interior here is still some of the old climate knobs that Mercedes kind of moved away from in cars like the redesigned C class, but a very attractive eight inch display here above the center part of the dash, it integrates a little bit more nicely into the dash than in some of other Mercedes vehicles where it sort of kind of perches out on its own. Similar touch pad knob combo command system as you'll find in the C class so you can use the touch pad to kind of zoom in, zoom out, flip through menus and even click down, or if you want, you can use commands, familiar kind of three tiered menu structure there. Now in terms of packaging, I got to say decent room, better room than you'd think. Looking at the outside of this car, lots of room here to adjust the seat back. I'm six feet tall, and I could sit easily, you know, two or three inches ahead of the seat all the way back. So there should be plenty of room for taller drivers, good head room too, I have the seat all the way up. And there's a big sunroof in this car right here. And I still have a little bit of headroom left over. Now, visibility, maybe not such a great story here. Kind of thick a pillars here, a very low vertical windshield here, looking out that's what happens when you have a very sleek roof line like this, check out the rear window, really small, kind of hard to see a lot of stuff out back. Let's take a look at the cargo area and the backseat. Now adult passengers will kind of have to duck down a little bit to get in here, but not bad packaging once you get in. That's where I'd sit to drive. As you can see lots of leg room leftover here, and a combination of a very nice high seating position off the ground for good thigh support without sacrificing too much headroom leftover. I got to say better than I expected on the outside of this vehicle. Now, the seats recline a few degrees. They don't really move forward or backward. Check out the folding process. Kind of an old bit of an antiquated thing. You gotta make sure you get this seat cushion tumbled forward first and then the head restraint has to fold down. And finally, you can pull the seats down like so to get a flat floor here, again, a three-step process about 58 cubic feet of maximum cargo room. Mercedes-Benz says that's more than the X6, but not really that much overall when you consider that the old M-Class had about 80 cubic feet. Now, the M-Class was Mercedes most popular selling SUV. So why the brand tried to turn that into sort of an X6 fighter? It doesn't make a lot of sense because in 2014, BMW sold more than 12 X5 for every X6. Maybe this'll be really fun to drive, but we won't know that until we get closer to its on sale date in late summer of 2015. So for now join us as we kind of scratch our heads at this one. (car engine roaring)