The 2013 Mercedes Benz GLK 350

It may be a little snarky to say so, but you can view the current Mercedes Benz GLK 350 as the Subaru Forester for the rest of us, if by "us" you meant those people who wouldn't be seen driving a Subaru.

In terms of its crossover mission, overall dimensions, and prevalence of all wheel drive, the Geländewagen Luxus Kompaktklasse, or "compact class luxury cross country vehicle," is nearly identical to the Forester. However, the comparison breaks down very rapidly from there, even as you are likely to see both in the Whole Foods parking lot in Greenwich.

 For a compact, all wheel drive crossover, the GLK 350 is fairly powerful. The standard motor is a naturally aspirated, 302-hp 3.5L V-6 with direct injection, mated to 7-speed automatic with paddle shifters. The GLK 350 also features the company's "ECO Start/Stop" engine management system to save fuel in heavy traffic. The GLK is also quick, not Infiniti FX37 quick, but still capable of putting down a 0-60 time of 6.5 seconds, something no Subaru Forester yet made could ever hope to do.

Mercedes-Benz

It's a driver's paradise behind the wheel of a GLK 350, with a 10-way power seat and leather upholstery.

Following a 2012 facelift, the driver of a GLK 350 will also be arriving in style. Frankly, the first generation GLK was not very good looking, something that is fully a curse of the entire crossover genre. Now generally, and especially with the optional AMG styling option, the GLK looks the part of Mercedes equally at home at the country club or the unimproved road to a summer cabin. Through the use of optional high intensity LED lamps replacing the traditional round fog lamps, the exterior designers were liberated to make the GLK's face more elegant and allow it to stand out in its segment as about as sporty and good looking as one could hope for in a tall, wagon-ish vehicle.

The GLK comes with the full array of standard and optional equipment that anyone would expect in one of the company's sedans. Standard in every version are luxury touches such as a 10 way power driver's seat with memory feature, a four way power adjustable steering column with multi-function steering wheel mounted controls and paddle shifters, burl walnut trim, and 11 way airbag protection. The optional 4Matic and AMG appearance package options have already been mentioned, but there are others, such as the "Lighting Package," which utilizes Bi-Xenon headlamps that can follow along with the arc of a turn which you can also leave on high beam as the car itself detects oncoming traffic and dims the headlamps to a lower intensity.

If you can afford to, you can also keep the base price climbing by leaps and bounds by clicking off boxes for a hard drive based navigation system, an eleven speaker Harmon/Kardon stereo system with MP3 player connectivity and even systemic storage for 10GB of music, indexed and made available by voice command.

The GLK 350 may be a departure design-wise for the company, but this crossover is every inch a Mercedes Benz.

CarWoo.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/2013-mercedes-benz-glk-350-luxury-subaru-article-1.1317274#ixzz2QecTF7Gv