BIG DEALS IN THIS TOWN
IT’S A COLD, misty morning on Melbourne’s Chapel Street. Traditionally a location heralded as a hot-spot of fashionable excess, the famed strip’s gentrification has fostered an environment where expensive boutiques now mingle with commonplace stores filled with pragmatism. In a weird irony, the three luxury SUVs we’ve assembled reflect the street in which they’re parked. All are family-friendly, diesel-powered rivals that provide vast convenience and versatility. However, they also attract a circa $100K price tag, meaning the Mercedes GLE, Volvo XC90 and BMW X5 remain desirable, premium purchases. The well-heeled certainly are spoilt for choice.
Given the increasing prevalence of the luxury SUV segment, a marque like Mercedes-Benz can’t afford to flounder – yet its GLE has been barely treading water. For the first half of 2019 BMW managed to shift 1792 X5s, while Benz found driveways for just 349 GLEs. Rubbing salt into the wound is the fact that the Volvo XC90, which was released in 2015, found 632 buyers up until the end of June.
That’s why the new GLE is so important to the Three-Pointed Star. It’s the latest kid-carrier on the overtly trendy SUV block. To prove Mercedes means business, it has been armed with keen pricing. The box-fresh 300d enters this battle with the lowest base figure of the trio at $99,900, giving it a slight advantage over the $101,900 XC90 D5 R-Design and a massive head start on the $112,990 X5 30d.
To prove its worth, the Mercedes not only has
