Mercedes-Benz, the company that invented the automobile, now brings you the GLK350 4Matic, nothing less than the company’s first compact sport-utility vehicle. Mercedes took pains to make the GLK something other than a smaller version of the established M-class, and it succeeded to the extent of making the vehicle look like a small, muscular, and luxurious SUV, which it in fact is. That will not stop the consumer in the street from taking one look at the dimensions—and the pie-plate-size three-pointed star on the grille—and concluding forthwith that the GLK350 is a small M-class.

The good news is that such confusion hardly matters. Whereas most builders of compact SUVs will throw a handful of gravel onto a parking lot and ask you to thrill to their product’s off-road capabilities, we had the opportunity to drive the GLK350 over an off-road course that most hunters wouldn’t tackle in a four-wheel-drive pickup. The GLK did well, producing scant head-whip and remaining stable even when a wheel separated itself completely from the earth.

But that was there, and this is here. The U.S. market will not get the off-road package, not an altogether silly decision considering that endless statistics reveal that luxury SUV owners shy from soiling their tire treads with dirt or, God forbid, mud.

The GLK350 qualifies as a luxury machine by anyone’s standards. All the bells and whistles are there—lots of leather and superbly textured control surfaces, excellent ergonomics, Bluetooth and iPod capability, and enough standard equipment to fit out a platoon of Tatas. The interior designers even offered up a surprise: a dash panel featuring polished aluminum surfaces instead of the usual wood.

Best of all, the GLK has that marvelous feeling of solidity and capability to which the best Mercedes vehicles of the past treated the driver fortunate enough to own one.

The engine in the GLK we drove was a 3.5-liter V-6 with 268 horsepower, delivered uneventfully through the familiar seven-speed automatic transmission. In Europe, there is also a 2.8-liter gasoline engine, plus 2.2- and 3.2-liter turbocharged diesels.

Mercedes rates the GLK350 at about 22 miles per gallon—EPA figures are not yet available—and the GLK320 CDI diesel at about 30 mpg, a 29 percent advantage. The diesel will come to the U.S. sometime in 2009, as will a two-wheel-drive version of the GLK350.

Prices for the GLK350 are not available, but conversations with M-B executives extracted the admission that they very much wanted the MSRP to begin with a three. Which means that a fully optioned example will doubtless cost more than $40,000.

If that sounds pricey, just consider that the GLK was featured in the recent hit movie Sex and the City and realize that celluloid cachet, for some buyers, is worth the tab.

Magazine Issue: Winding Road Issue 38