Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class vs Maserati Levante

What's the difference?

The GLC300 Coupe isn't quite as great when it comes to being a family car as the regular SUV version of the GLC, and that's purely down to the sloping roofline which not only makes access more difficult to the second row but reduces boot capacity.

That said, the GLC300 Coupe makes a much better family car than a Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan, or any sedan.

Easy and enjoyable to drive, packed with great features and still practical, the GLC300 Coupe would still cut it as a good family car.

Maseratis are built for a fairly specific niche buyer; someone with a lot of money, someone slightly older and certainly someone who likes the finer things in life and appreciates Italian style, quality and heritage.

They are not, typically, the kind of buyers who want to tear around race tracks like fiends in big, shouty SUVs. But apparently there is a niche within the niche of Maserati fans who do, and they are willing to invest big dollars in vehicles wearing the Trofeo badge, like this Levante.

It might seem a slightly strange creation, a track-mad SUV with a screaming Ferrari engine, but surprisingly, it really does work.

Coupe SUVs aren’t for everybody… they’re not even for lots of people. But the design of an SUV with its roof cut down so that it meets the tailgate at an almost sportscar-like angle appeals to more than a few fans. The thing is they don’t just like the look, they love it, and they also probably enjoy how much the styling makes other people cranky.

To my eyes the GLC300 Coupe is the best execution of the bodystyle compared to those of BMW and Audi. There’s an elegance to the GLC300 Coupe and the AMG-line adds a tough look that only enhances the solid, powerful but pretty look.

The GLC Coupe is a mid-sized SUV and this new generation model is a bit bigger the previous one and now measures 31mm longer at 4763mm end to end, it’s 1890mm wide, 1605mm tall and has a wheelbase of 2888mm.

It’s also more aerodynamic than ever. No seriously, it’s drag coefficient is now 0.27 and it looks like a bar of soap - and it's about as slippery as one, too.

More curved surfaces await inside with a dashboard that pours down into the large centre console and it's adorned with a sloping and large portrait-style media screen. 

At night or in tunnels the ambient lighting glows through the air vents and skirts the edges of the door trims, console and dashboard.

It’s a minimalist and high-tech cockpit with modern sports seats up front and a Nappa leather wrapped steering wheel with its twin blade design.  

So, how does the coupe design work for family practicality? Let’s take a look.

While the other two Maseratis to get the Trofeo treatment - the Ghibli and Quattroporte sedans - are undeniably lovely, the Levante is not quite as pretty.

Admittedly, for an SUV, it looks very good, and the Trofeo touches - that big, nostrilled bonnet, the red gills on the sides, the carbon, the badges - really do lift its game to another level.

Overall, though, the Levante has just never felt beautiful enough to me to be a Maserati. These guys really do style well, as you'd expect from a premium Italian brand, but making an SUV sexy is beyond even them.

I'll grant you, it does look good from front on, but at the rear they just seem to have run out of ideas.

Credit is due for feeling properly special inside, however.

SUVs are the most practical cars for families because of the better access to the cabin thanks to their large doors and slightly elevated ride height, their big boots with wide and tall hatch openings and their high flat rooflines. They’re essentially raised station wagons.

A coupe-style SUV still has four doors but they are less boxy due to the sloping roofline which falls away quickly to meet the tailgate at a lower point. The effect is a sporty-looking shape but practicality is lost in this exercise of form over function.

The second row doorways aren’t as large as those on the regular SUV. I did a side-by-side test and felt like I had to duck under the sloping roof when getting out of the back seat.

The smaller opening also made it trickier to lift my toddler daughter into her baby seat.

The sidesteps are also surprisingly handy for bigger kids and my eight-year-old used them every time when climbing into the car.

Cabin storage is outstanding with huge door pockets and cupholders in both rows, and while the 545-litre boot in the GLC300 Coupe is 80 litres smaller than the cargo capacity of the regular GLC SUV, it's bigger than the previous version of the Coupe.

As for people space, there’s enough headroom for me at 189cm tall in the back seat and heaps of legroom, even behind my driving position.

I’ve mentioned the lack of climate control in the second row, but also should point out that there are no USB ports back there either.

There are USB ports in the big centre console box upfront and a long cord should be able to make it to the second row. 

There’s a wireless phone charger but it's housed in the bowels of the centre console too, and you’ll need to weave your hand while clasping the phone under the shiny black trapdoor, past the cupholders possibly with drinks in them and almost under the dashboard.

If you've got to move five people in a genuine hurry, the Levante is a pleasant way to go about it.

There's plenty of head and shoulder room, the seats, while firm in the front, are pleasant to the touch and supportive and there's a 580-litre boot with an electric tailgate and split-folding seats.

The boot feels properly spacious, too, with a 12-volt power outlet and four tie-down points. You won't, however, find a spare wheel out there, so serious off-roading is out (although it probably was already if you look at those expensive wheels).

There are huge door pockets with room for bottles and two big cup holders in the front. The centre-console bin looks lovely, it's all carbon fibre, but is quite small.

There are also three USB points, one in the front and two in the rear, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.

I'm sorry, but $330,000 for an SUV, of any kind? Personally I can't see the value, but then personally, as we'll discuss below in the Design section, I can't see the attraction.

This is one of the most expensive SUVs money can buy, well above things like Range Rover Sport SVR ($239,187) or even Porsche Cayenne Turbo Coupe ($254,000), although a pricier Ferrari one is surely on the way.

You'd want a lot for that, and the way it drives and sounds, thanks to that Ferrari engine, accounts for quite a few dollars.

There's also an undeniably high-quality feel to everything you touch on the car, inside and out, and a vast quantity of carbon fibre everywhere as well.

Other highlights include the 21-inch machine polished wheels, an 8.4-inch touchscreen with Navigation and DAB radio, full matrix LED headlights, and incredible Pieno Fiore natural leather, “the best the world has ever seen”, as Maserati says.

The lovely if firm front seats are heated and ventilated, sporty and 12-way adjustable, with Trofeo logos stitched into the headrests. The rooflining is lovely Alcantara, the steering wheel is sporty and features carbon-fibre shift paddles, ad the stereo system is Harman Kardon Premium and has 14 speakers.

And even the rear seats are heated. It feels expensive, and it should. But still, $330K?

The GLC300 Coupe has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine making 190kW of power and 400Nm of torque.

There’s also an overboost function which allows the engine to make an extra 17kW and 200Nm just for a brief moment, but that extra dollop of grunt combined with the regular output provides impressive acceleration (0-100km/h in about 6.3 seconds) for overtaking or moving quickly when you need to.

A smooth nine-speed automatic transmission sends the drive to all-four wheels.

The GLC300 Coupe is all-wheel drive and while there’s a setting for rougher terrain, along with one for comfort, eco and sport, but I’d make sure that it doesn’t get any more adventurous than tame gravel and dirt roads.

Mercedes-Benz refers to the GLC300 Coupe as a mild hybrid and this is because it has a 48-volt system and an integrated starter-generator.

This type of hybrid doesn’t use electric motors, doesn’t drive the wheels and won’t save much fuel, but it will provide efficiencies by supporting the engine and when coasting, plus will reduce petrol consumption to a small degree.

This will be the last time Maserati gets a proper Ferrari engine like this a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 shouty monster, which is good for 433kW and 730Nm.

The future, as is the case everywhere, is going to be more electric and less noisy. For now, anyone who can should enjoy this V8 masterpiece, which drives all four wheels through Maserati's Q4 on-demand all-wheel drive system via a limited-slip rear differential and uses an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Its claimed 0 to 100km/h time is 3.9 seconds, which puts it in what used to be super-car territory, and is still very quick indeed, while top speed is an unimaginable 304km/h.

As we mentioned above the GLC300 Coupe's 48-volt mild hybrid system is not the kind of hybrid that will allow you to drive miles on electric power, nor will it dramatically reduce fuel consumption in the way a parallel, series or plug-in hybrid will. But every bit of efficiency helps.

Mercedes-Benz says the GLC300 Coupe will use 7.7L/100km after a combination of open and urban roads. 

We had the GLC300 Coupe for just two days, but in that time my family covered 176km of regular daily usage which took in motorways but mainly suburban duties such as the school run, supermarket dashes, that sort of thing.

In our fuel test we measured 14.48 litres at the fuel pump which works out to be an on-test fuel use figure of 8.2L/100km and not far off the manufacturer’s claim. 

While this fuel consumption isn’t overly high, a plug-in hybrid or even a parallel or series hybrid could return about 5.0L/100km or less.

Mercedes-Benz has dropped plug-in hybrids from its Australian range which is a shame because it would be good to see more efficient options in the GLC range. Of course if you want more efficiency from a Benz of the same size, there is always the fully electric EQB or EQC.

The official claimed fuel economy for the Maserati Levante Trofeo is 13.5 litres per 100km, but good luck with that. 

A more realistic number would probably sit somewhere above 17 litres per 100km, and we would have easily exceeded 20 litres while driving it like lunatics around a track.

But you just paid $330K for an SUV, what do you care about fuel economy?

There’s a lot to like here but the short version is the GLC300 Coupe has a comfortable ride, but good handling, with a responsive engine, although rear visibility through the small back window is poor.

If we drill down a bit further I can tell you that excellent cameras around the car will help you check to make sure kids aren’t running around behind you and that forward and side visibility through the window is good.

An important takeaway is that the GLC300 Coupe is easy to drive with light steering and an engine that’s mild and controlled in its power delivery.

The gear shifter is mounted on the steering column, in the same way an indicator lever is. So putting the car into Drive, Reverse and Park is so easy and means you don’t have to take your hands off the steering wheel. 

As a family car I liked the good body control and composed ride. We have a small toddler that we can sometimes only get to sleep by taking her for a drive and we found that she could nod off and not be woken by potholes and speed bumps or too much leaning in the corners. 

We got to drive all three Trofeo-fettled Maseratis on track at Sydney Motorsport Park, and before that on the road, where the Levante felt very pleasant, and pleasantly expensive at all times.

As you might expect, a vehicle with 433kW is difficult to fully appreciate on public roads, although there was the occasional and exciting change to give it a quick, loud blat between gears.

It only takes hearing that engine note, and feeling that torque surge, a few times to see why someone might fall in love with this car, or at least this engine.

Out on the track, the rear-driven Ghibli and Quattroporte, which share the Levante's engine, were surely the more fun and frenetic things to drive, but there were those who chose the Levante as their best of the three, even for circuit driving.

There's no doubt that its on-demand all-wheel-drive system, which is biased towards the rear but asks the front wheels for help when required, made it feel the most planted, and the safest, through fast and slow bends.

There's a definite sense that its engine is being asked to work the hardest, though, to push all that bulk through the air (although its brakes never seemed to fade, which is impressive with more than two tonnes of SUV to stop).

While the big, deafening V8 is willing and keen to rev all the way to 7000rpm (where it bangs on the redline waiting for your upshift, if you're driving in manual mode - I do like that), it started to make large sucking sounds towards the top of each gear, as if it was desperately trying to get more oxygen in.

It genuinely sounded different to the other two Trofeo cars, which is odd, but perhaps they just weren't as near their limits. That bulk also slowed it slightly in terms of top speed down the straight, but it still exceeded 220km/h with ease.

What should be said is that I was genuinely shocked at how good the Levante Trofeo was around a track. So much so I asked to have a second go, just to make sure I wasn't going mad.

Sure, it makes no sense to me personally, and I don't know why anyone needs an SUV that's good on a track, but if you do, I can recommend the Levante for sure.

That hugely enjoyable engine is just too much fun, although it's even better in a sedan like the Ghibli...

Maserati's safety offering on the Levante includes six airbags, a reversing camera and 360-degree overhead camera, parking sensors front and rear, adaptive cruise control and Blind Spot Detection, Forward Collision Warning Plus, Pedestrian Detection, Lane Keep Assist, Active Driver Assist and Traffic Sign Recognition.

There is no ANCAP rating for the Levante as it's not been crash tested here.

The GLC300 is covered by Mercedes-Benz's five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty. 

Services are annually or every 25,000km. And you can buy a three-year service plan for about $3000.

Maserati offers a three-year, unlimited kilometre warranty, but you can choose to buy 12-month or two-year warranty extensions, and even a sixth or seventh-year drive-train warranty extension.

When much, much cheaper Japanese and Korean cars are offering seven and even 10-year warranties, this is so far off the pace that such a fast vehicle should be embarrassed. And if you're buying something Italian, a better, longer warranty would seem like a must. I'd be negotiating at sale for them to throw the longer warranty offer in.

Maserati says servicing for the Ghibli has a "ball park costing of $2700.00 for the first three years of ownership" with a service schedule of every 20,000km or 12 months (whichever occurs first)

Also, "please note that the above is indicative only of the manufacturers basic routine service maintenance schedule and does not include any consumable items such as tyres, brakes etc or additional dealership charges such as environmental levies etc."