• Plenty of room and storage space up front  
• Transmission tunnel robs middle rear seat legroom
• Competitive bootspace with easy-to-fold rear seats

Space up front is plentiful with seats that slide back an impressive amount to accommodate long legs, plenty of elbow room between you and your front seat passenger and good head room, too. We would point out the panoramic roof where fitted does erode head room by a few centimetres, though.

The rear isn’t quite as spacious as an Audi Q5, let alone a Land Rover Discovery Sport or larger mainstream rival such as the Kia Sorento. Rear head room is generous assuming you’ve avoided the panoramic roof, although rear leg room is merely adequate for those six-foot and above.

Try to fit three in the back and you’ll find there’s a tall and wide central tunnel to contend with. It’s a similar story with the Q5 and BMW X3, although the Discovery Sport has a flat rear floor that makes things a little easier. There is no seven-seat option available.

Boot space and storage 

Front seat passengers get a generous door pocket each, a sizeable cupholder under a lidded cubby, a shelf that’ll happily swallow a smartphone and wallet plus a sizeable cubby under the central front armrest. With that much useful oddment storage, we can forgive the pokey glovebox.

Rear seat occupants have door pockets big enough for a small bottle of water or two and map pockets on the rear of the front seats. Flop down the central rear armrest and you’ll find a shallow storage area and a couple of pop-out cupholders. 

Boot space is decent but not exceptional, with a 550-litre capacity with the rear seats in place. That’s less than an Audi Q5 or Land Rover Discovery Sport, with plug-in hybrid GLCs getting even less space. That’s because of a raised boot floor to help accommodate the big battery that powers the GLC in EV mode. All trims get an electric tailgate, handy boot-mounted switches to fold down the rear bench, luggage nets and tie down hooks to boost practicality.

Is the Mercedes GLC easy to park?

Despite the GLC having a long bonnet that disappears from view, standard all round parking sensors and a reversing camera make parking pretty straight forward. If that’s not enough assistance, even entry-level AMG Line trim gets self-parking tech that’ll steer you into a space all by itself.

Should you want a bit more peace of mind for tight manoeuvring, Premium Plus gets you a 360-degree camera system so you can easily see where the GLC’s extremities are. We wish the display was a bit higher in resolution, though.

Safety

• Five-star Euro NCAP safety rating now expired
• Optional driver assistance package
• Two Isofix points as standard

The GLC was crash tested all the way back in 2015, although this score has now expired. And while it got a five-star rating, the regulations have got an awful lot stricter,making comparisons with newer cars hard.

Automatic emergency braking is standard, but many useful bits of safety kit such as blind spot monitoring is available as part of a Driving Assistance pack only available on top-spec models.

Disappointingly you only get two Isofix child seat mounts, one on each outer rear seat.