When it comes to naming cars, different car companies do their thing, but there tends to be a usual trend. Asian car makers like the Japanese usually give 'just names', hence we have the Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima, Subaru Impreza, with the only distinction being the year of the car make. So you could see a sign with the words, "2012 Toyota Camry for sale" and an image is immediately formed in your head. On the other hand, the German car makers make use of an alphanumeric style, hence we have the Mercedes C300, BMW M250, Audi RS6 and co. Only very few people reading this could have pictured all three cars as the alphanumeric style is quite confusing.
In all honesty, if I am to go in-depth into how all car manufacturers name their cars, we would sleep here. So, I am going to focus on the most common German car brand in Nigeria which is the Mercedes Benz, specifically the SUV department, so that my TurboNerdz can daze anyone on the topic of Benz SUV's.
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| Above: 2015 GLE 500; Below: 2015 ML 350 |
At first glance, both cars pictured above could be mistaken to be the same, but guess what? They are not. The car above belongs to the GL family while the the one below belongs to the ML family of SUV's. Now, one might ask, what is the difference? The GL SUV's are simply more luxurious, powerful, stretched and expensive than their ML counterparts. However, the ML class of SUV's was discontinued and replaced in 2015 by the GLE, confusing right? This GL/ML thing was what first aroused my curiosity, so I dug deeper.
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Mercedes Benz SUV Lineup
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I am very sure Mercedes received a customer review, explaining how confusing their car lineup's were, so they decided to simplify the SUV lineup. Under the new naming convention, all Benz SUVs begin with the letter G as seen in the picture above, now let us take them one after the other. I would advice that you to scroll through the following images carefully, while noting the differences between them, thank you.
1. THE GLA SUV
The GLA is the smallest of the crew, it is like a downsized version of the GLC. It is obviously cheaper and produces less power than the GLC.
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| 2018 Mercedes Benz GLA |
2. THE GLC SUV
The GLC is the one that has captured my heart. It was created to replace the GLK and also to compete with small SUV's like the Toyota Rav4, Honda CR-V and co. It looks beautiful and has just enough power.
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2018 Mercedes Benz GLC
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3. THE GLE SUV
The GLE is the big boy of the crew. It replaced the ML SUV as I mentioned earlier and it keeps the spirit of normal Benz SUV's which is big and aggressive. It is surprisingly very fuel efficient.
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| 2018 Mercedes Benz GLE SUV |
4. THE GLE COUPE
If you want to make a statement while driving a Benz SUV, then the GLE Coupe is the one for you. It screams 'Boss Moves'. It is a couped up version of the normal GLE and definitely less fuel economical.
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| 2018 Mercedes Benz GLE COUPE |
5. THE GLS SUV
The Benz SUV for business executives, bank managers and the like. It just looks too official.
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| 2018 Mercedes Benz GLS SUV |
6. THE G-CLASS (popularly known as the G-Wagon)
Not much needs to be said about the G-Wagon because everyone loves it. If you can afford it, buy it!
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| 2018 Mercedes Benz G-Class |
I would love to go into detail on each of the 6 SUV classes pictured above but this episode would become too long and boring. I also left out the Electric Mercedes SUV's, as well as the Maybach SUV because they do not fall under this category. The essence of this episode is just to familiarize us with pictorial knowledge of what each Mercedes Benz SUV looks like, so that you can easily tell when one drives by or when considering which one to purchase. I can only hope that this was helpful in some way and if it was, please say so in the comments.
Thank you for reading and always remember to Turbo that engine.
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