• Roomy, especially in the front
• Decent boot
• Capable on rocks, ice, mud, sand…

The Coupe has a wheelbase that’s 30mm less than the regular GLE SUV, but that doesn’t make it look or feel like a small car. The front occupants have all the space and adjustment anyone could want. It’s the back that loses out through the reduced wheelbase, but not by much – there’s more legroom than in most cars.

The boot space with the rear seats folded flat is less than the GLE SUV’s: 1,790 versus 2,055 litres. But that’s still pretty good. And just as importantly, the load lip is not high by the standards of this style of car, making the space easy to access. With the rear seats up you get 655 litres of luggage capacity – that’s over 100 litres more than an E-Class saloon’s, to put that in context.

And if you’re inclined to go off-road – whether that’s trailering a boat on to a beach, or heading up a rutted farm track, or negotiating muddy rugby-club car parks – the GLE Coupe has all the rugged versatility you’d expect from any Mercedes 4x4. The all-wheel-drive system is designed to find whatever grip is available, and you can juggle the modes and other driver aids to help.

Safety

• Alerts you to problems
• Will help in an emergency
• Brakes and handling should keep you out of trouble

The GLE Coupe comes fitted with most of Mercedes’ latest driver assistance systems, with the rest available as options. Standard equipment includes Active Brake Assist, which boosts your braking effort if that’s necessary to avoid collisions with other road users.

It also has Active Lane Keep Assist, Speed Limit Assist and Attention Assist, which between them will alert you to any careless meandering, and if needed correct your mistake. Active Blind Spot Assist, Active Lane Change Assist, Active Emergency Stop Assist, Evasive Steering Assist and Traffic Sign Assist all chip in too.

Perhaps more importantly than all this, the brakes are powerful and easy to modulate, and the handling is accurate and predictable. All of which – combined with good visibility from your high perch – helps you avoid accidents in the first place.  

And the cruise control and sat-nav systems are easy to use, and work in close co-ordination to help you get where you’re going smoothly and efficiently. It’s a long way short of the self-driving cars that were being teased not so long ago; rather, it’s a bunch of clever tech helping us to drive well.

If it all goes wrong, Pre-Safe will anticipate a collison and get the seatbelts and multiple airbags ready to deploy with millimetric precision.