Rock and some roll

Take everything you know about what a Mercedes can do and throw it away. It’s the only way you’ll ever get to grips with what follows. I was looking at an incline of about 40-50 degrees. There was barely a visible path to speak of. There were thick bushes on either side, often overlapping each other across the track. And the most dangerous part was that there was no end in sight. Which means that had we were stuck, with no space to turn this MASSIVE Merc around. Before I continue, there’s this term, Trailblazing. Trailblazing is essentially taking a car where no car has gone before. It’s an immensely satisfying experience when you do something they said the car wasn’t capable of. Anyway, 40-50 degree incline No end in sight Let’s see what’s what. Step 1: Push the button on the dash to raise the suspension. Step 2: Push the other button next to it that helps you climb. Step 3: Turn on the front and 360° camera (it gives you a real time bird’s eye view of the car). And Step 4: Say a little prayer. That forward-facing camera really helped, because from where I was sitting, all I could see was sky. Just to be safe, I had a spotter with her head sticking out of the sunroof. The way this thing climbs, and the places it can fit through truly mashes the mind. The off-road trail was about two kilometres long and we only chanced upon a few villagers who stopped dead in their tracks and wondered how in the world a car this big could possibly be going past them at an angle so indecent. The Mercedes driver, my spotter and I were actually wondering the same thing. The Launch Edition GL350 CDI that we tested had 21in AMG wheels with 295/40 section tyres on them. If you aren’t familiar with tyre and wheel sizes, well, they’re massive. And they look really good. Although, like the ML we brought you a few weeks ago, they’re road tyres. They’re not really meant for this kind of thing. And yet The next bit of astonishment came during the drive back to Pune on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. I was running out of fuel on the way back. With a quarter of a tank to go, we set off for Pune with the range reading 230km. This was going to be close. There is a feature on the multi-function display that tells you your real-time fuel consumption. And apart from the toll booths where I had to accelerate from standstill, it told me that over that stretch between 80 and 100kph, I had consumed (and this is equally shocking) 4.5 litres per 100 kilometres. That’s a scarcely believable 22.2kpl from a 3.0 V6 diesel in a car this big. The same hypermiling in the city kept me at 17-18kpl. But now for some bad news. The ride is absolutely unbecoming of a Mercedes in the city. It rolls really badly over smooth bumps and crashes on the sharper ones. One of my passengers even described the ride being as bad as an Innova’s. And there’s a very simple reason — the size of the wheels and tyres. The Launch Edition comes with 21in AMG wheels with skinny low profile tyres. But you can have the made-in-India GL for '72.58 lakh (ex-showroom) with 19in or even 18in wheels with tyres that are well fed. That simple fix will improve the ride no end and make it the car it deserves to be. And if I had a family of seven, that’s the one I’d have.