Lexus LX570 vs Mercedes-Benz E400

What's the difference?

When you look at a Lexus LX, you see a distinct resemblance to a Toyota LandCruiser. That’s understandable given that, fundamentally, the Lexus LX is a comprehensively gussied-up Toyota LandCruiser.

Built to put the luxury brand into the large SUV game, and taking advantage of Toyota's huge product portfolio, it's clear that this is not for chucking down the side of a mountain (although it can absolutely do that if asked, as long as you're on good terms with your local paint shop).

Lexus is - or more accurately, LX buyers are - very clear about how folks use the LX: it’s a city car. So it's got all the sophisticated city looks, with skirts and bling and big shiny alloy wheels. Whether there's a point to all that is irrelevant - there are clearly people, like you, who want a posh LandCruiser.

It is hard to immediately think of a country more suited to the convertible life than Australia. Even our coldest states (you know who you are…) are blessed with more warming sun than almost anywhere else on the civilised parts of the planet, so you’d think we’d be swanning about in dropped-top bliss almost year round.

But it’s actually in the UK (despite being cold, grey and almost always underwater) that convertibles really fly out of dealerships, with sun-starved Brits buying more than anyone else in the world. Weird, right?

Still, here they remain something of an oddity, sold in small numbers to drop-top diehards. At least partly because the convertibles of old were almost always slightly worse than their hardtop equivalents. 

But Mercedes - which makes more convertibles than most - claims to have mastered the soft-top formula with the E400 4Matic, a car it says offers all the perks of open-air motoring without any of the dynamic or practical downsides.