Just the right size? Mercedes GLB-Class looks poised to be a hit

The GLB 250 and GLB 250 4Matic will go on sale by the end of 2019.

If you’ve always suspected that there was a letter space between the Mercedes-Benz GLA-Class and GLC-Class, you were correct. That letter is B, and the model that will go on sale later this year will be called the GLB-Class. But it’s meant to be more than a lineup-filler in terms of size and price — the GLB-Class will play the role of the more affordable Mercedes-Benz SUV that will offer almost all of the room of the pricier GLC-Class, which will keep its luxurious interior and luxurious price tag.

To say that Mercedes-Benz needed an SUV like the GLB-Class for a while would be an understatement, but it has come about as a result of lessons learned with the smaller GLA-Class, as well the GLC-Class. Mercedes found that buyers liked the versatility of a pocket-size Mercedes SUV, but not everyone wanted to pay for the luxurious interior or the plusher suspension. That’s how the GLB-Class came about: It’s meant to be rugged, spacious, capable, but aimed at adventure rather than luxury. And right from the first few minutes of riding alongside a Mercedes engineer, we can see that this is a winning formula, just as the GLB-Class completed its last round of tests in the American southwest for high altitude testing and hot weather testing.

Mercedes brought the GLB 250 to Colorado a short time later, where we got an early peek at the new SUV, due to go on sale late this year as a 2020 model.

But what about cold weather testing?

“It’s typically done in Sweden. It’s our standard location, but also since the car will be produced in Mexico, we also did some cold weather testing here in North America, in Minnesota,” the Mercedes engineer who prefers to remain nameless tells us. “But the main chunk is being done in Sweden, and pretty much the same idea: 10 days or two weeks on proving ground and then a drive on public roads through Sweden, maybe Finland, Denmark and Germany to cover various climate zones and various surfaces. So in Sweden, you’ve got basically complete snow cover, and toward southern Sweden, the snow cover is not permanent, so you’ve got a mix of snow and ice that’s not permanent. And in Germany, you’ve got the autobahn for the pavement. And you can cover all that in a three- or four-day drive. In Sweden, the climate is not as stable as it used to be, so we used to have -20, -25 degrees Celsius as a permanent low temperature, and we now sometimes have just below zero. But it’s still required to do this real-life testing.”

But precisely how does the GLB-Class fit into the lineup of Mercedes SUVs when it comes to size?

Mercedes says that the GLB’s wheelbase is 1.7 inches shorter than that of the GLC-Class, but it’s 5.1 inches longer than the wheelbase of the GLA-Class, edging closer in size to its larger sibling. It’s also almost at tall as the GLC-Class, and it features short overhangs to maximize interior volume, designed to offer five- and seven-seat options. That’s right: It’s big enough for three rows.

The GLB 250 and GLB 250 4Matic will go on sale by the end of 2019.

When it comes to design, Mercedes sought to give the GLB-Class its own look. It’s not a derivative of the rounded, soft design of the GLC-Class, and it’s not a hatchback like the GLA-Class. The boxy shape gives it some resemblance to the G-Class, and that’s not by accident — Mercedes wants to highlight its utilitarian nature.

“There were early rumors about a ‘Mini-G’ — this is clearly from that silhouette,” the engineer tells us. “It’s got steep windows, kind of boxy design, but ultimately it goes more to the GLS family, so when you look at the new GLS and this one, they have very similar styling features. It wouldn’t be right to call it a small G-Class because the G-Class stands on its own. But this kind of boxy design is something that positions it as an SUV, reminds a little bit of the GLK, and there was clearly customer feedback that the GLC is very soft, very rounded. And when we say the car is almost the same size, we have to do something to distinguish it optically from the GLC, which this is the more boxy look.”

Was customer feedback from the GLA-Class and the GLC-Class used to find the sweet spot with the GLB-Class, we ask?

“Yes and no,” he tells us. “First of all, the GLA will most likely have a successor. It has not been announced yet, but let’s assume there will be one. The immediate GLA customer feedback was overwhelmingly positive — the car is a huge success for us — but there were a couple things to the entire platform we used feedback from, as well as to the GLA, which is predominantly interior space, view outside of the car and suspension feedback. So the entire platform has taken care of that, starting from the A-Class, throughout the platform. (The A-Class) is a little larger, it’s got better visibility and a more subtle suspension. Obviously, that’s something that we’ve also carried over to this one. But sizewise, this is a different car, clearly much bigger, different customer target group, people requiring more space either for family or for hobbies, activities. While the GLA is a more compact car on a short wheelbase, the GLB clearly offers more space and has a different target group.”

The GLB 250 and its 4Matic, all-wheel-drive version will be powered by a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four producing 221 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque, with a new eight-speed dual-clutch transmission doing the shifting. So buyers will be able to choose all-wheel drive if they need it — it won’t be a standard item — reflecting the different regions for which Mercedes wants the GLB to be suitable.

The GLB will be offered in 250 guise, with our without 4Matic all-wheel drive, when it comes to non-AMG models.

And what about the goals of the suspension: Did Mercedes wish to make it more agile as compared to the GLC-Class and a little less plush?

“A little less plush, definitely,” the engineer tells us. “The technical goal is rather easy: take known components from a compact platform, so an air suspension is a no-go — there’s no space and we don’t have the money for that — so you have to have a conventional suspension and you have to make the best out of it. And then you’re within the platform limits, so the suspension components have to fit to a compact hatch like the A-Class as well to an SUV like this. Very similar components but not exactly the same components because we changed the track width and the wheelbase, but concept-wise, it’s got to be the same axles and the same suspension. So you have to have that span of performance from a very light, agile hatch, compact hatch, up to a seven-seater SUV with pretty much the same technology. And that kind of limits your options. The goal is to make it more forgiving than the predecessor, not as harsh, still keep it agile which is predominantly due to the steering setup, and allow a little more of body movement — it doesn’t have to be too connected to the road. We do have the adjustable damping system, which will tie the car more to the road. So the Sports option on that adjustable damper is clearly distinguishable from the comfort setting, body movement is restricted, you feel a little more of the road, it’s not too sporty, not too hard which is something that the AMG colleagues are going to cover in their versions of these various compact cars.”

There was a pretty large gap beneath the GLC-Class that was not addressed until the GLA-Class debuted in 2014. And it’s been five years already that Mercedes has not fielded a vehicle spaced between those two models, as popular as they are individually, while other automakers have rushed to fill this gap by offering premium and luxury crossovers and SUVs between the sizes of the GLA-Class and the GLC-Class. So how long has the GLB been on the drawing board?

“Typically, you can say that a vehicle lifetime lifespan is around six years depending on production schedules, but roughly let’s say six years,” the engineer tells us. “And with the introduction of the A-Class, B-class, and CLA-Class, immediately we started discussing the successor models of the current cars. So currently we’re in concept discussions about the 2024-2025 lineup, and it’s not set in stone yet, but you could say that roughly those, five years, six years, you pretty much know if you want to produce such a type of car. You don’t know what it looks like, you don’t know the specs yet, but you know that it’s going to be GLB, for instance. So roughly five to six years. And then you start developing the platform already knowing that this platform has to carry a rather large SUV-type vehicle, so you have to consider what preparations you have to take in order to produce such a car on that platform.”

It’s rare for an SUV of this size to share a platform and engines with what we think of as much smaller cars, like the new A-Class sedan. So Mercedes had to make a few changes to the drivetrain to accommodate the larger body.

“With the higher vehicles’ larger wheels, we switched from a seven-gear dual-clutch to an eight-gear,” the engineer notes. “Which is a new in-house development.”

The GLB will be offered in 250 guise, with our without 4Matic all-wheel drive, when it comes to non-AMG models.

Neither China nor Europe sounds like a big off-road-focused market, but Mercedes still gave the GLB-Class off-road abilities, knowing this SUV will be taken off-road by the more adventure-minded users in the U.S., even if that adventure just means big snowfalls in the Midwest and the Northeast.

“And actually when we do an SUV, even though we know that 99 percent of the people will never take it off-road, we still give it a decent amount of off-road capabilities,” the engineer tells us. “So even the one here, we do off-road testing and we design certain off-road capabilities into the car because when we call it an SUV, then at least we expect it to be formed enough to satisfy the actual needs of people. So the four-wheel drive comes with some off-road functionalities, including an off-road driving program, where we set up ESP, the transmission control and the engine control to off-road program, and it’s actually quite surprising what a car without a differential lock, what this car can do off-road.”

Mercedes won’t say how well it expects the GLB-Class to perform saleswise against its GLA-Class and GLC-Class siblings, but early buzz around this vehicle suggests it could outsell both. Mercedes won’t admit this out loud, but industry observers have been recently saying this is the Mercedes SUV that many have been waiting for, without the size compromises of its smaller sibling and without the price tag of its larger one.

If our couple of hours in the passenger seat of the GLB-Class are any indication, this one seems sized and priced to make it a hit: The GLB 250 will start from $36,995, while the GLB 250 4Matic will start from $39,595, priced well below the GLC- and GLE-Class models.

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