Mercedes-AMG GLE53 vs Ford Tourneo Custom

What's the difference?

You might have some traditional notions of what a 'sports car' is.

Low and light, slick and aerodynamic, purely mechanical and centred around the driver. These notions may have held true for a long time, but in an age where Lamborghini makes a Touareg-based super SUV is there room for those parameters to move?

Especially with consumer sentiment indicating the somewhat oxymoronic idea of a low-slung coupe SUV with an AMG powertrain is more than just a niche.

Mercedes told us the previous generation GLE coupe was a major success, amassing up to 25 per cent of the model line's sales split, and its research indicated  a buyer of this massive SUV was drawn to its "performance, style and technology" and was even "a motorsport fan."

Sounds like this buyer would have once been looking for a 'sports car' and like it or not, performance coupe SUVs are here to stay. But does the new GLE 53 Coupe really make for a compelling experience behind the wheel? We found out at its local launch.

This idea hasn’t always worked out too well. Take a parcel-van (in this case the Ford Transit Custom) strip out the rubber matting and cargo barrier and bolt six or seven seats into what was the load area. Sure, the original vehicle to use this concept, the Volkswagen Kombi way back in the 1950s, got away with it, possibly because there wasn’t anything better around.

Ford has plenty of history with this notion, too. The first Transit of 1965 was also available as a mini-bus, but worked okay because the Transit itself was such a car-like departure from the commercial-vehicle norm.

Things didn’t go so well for Ford in the early 1980s, however, when the Econovan-badged parcel van it shared with Mazda (the E2200) was fitted with eight seats, given some fuzzy velour trim and dubbed the Spectron. And it was dreadful. In fact, so bad, that it made the contemporaneous Mitsubishi Nimbus and the even more forgettable Nissan Prairie seem like vastly superior alternatives to the job of moving people. Only because they were.

Early versions of the Spectron retained the Econovan’s crude suspension, wheezy (and fragile) little engines and even the tiny dual rear wheels that entirely deprived the vehicle of any traction. In fact, dreadful doesn’t even cover it.

So you can see why Ford might be a bit antsy about me referring to the new Tourneo (a badge that has been around in Europe for decades) as a Transit Custom with extra seats and windows. Yet that kind of sums it up (up to a point, anyway). Luckily, the Transit Custom itself is a pretty sorted thing these days, so maybe Ford has nothing to worry about. Maybe…