MERCEDES-BENZ GLE 450 4MATIC

₹1.15 TO ₹1.36 CRORE (EX-SHOWROOM) WHY IT'S HERE? To find out if the SUV that started it all is still the one to beat

- SANEET DSILVA

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.