Mercedes GLC 250 d 4Matic AMG car review – ‘The cabin is like aspacecraft’

It wasn't unusual to emerge from the vehicle to find a small crowd waiting, hoping for Lewis Hamilton's autograph

When I was a kid, someone told me you should never give a cat an egg, because afterwards egg was all it wanted, and other food all fell into the same grey, "not-egg" category. It's not exactly that, to drive a Mercedes, but you never come away unscathed: there's always a new dimension to your character, whether it's status anxiety, spoiltness or a hitherto undreamed of yen for luxury.

The one with the ridiculous name (GLC 250 d 4Matic AMG line, as if made up by a password generator) certainly has flights of fancy from which you will never want to return. They have nailed the parking camera, with a bird's-eye and a side view. This, for people who hate having to turn their neck, is a huge deal. And it does make for awesomely elegant, single-swoop manoeuvres, so that it wasn't unusual to emerge from the vehicle to find a small crowd waiting, hoping for Lewis Hamilton's autograph. The cabin is like a spacecraft: solid, slightly futuristic, full of dinky trims of light in doors and footwells, and with more USBs and cupholders than even the most device-intense, thirstiest family could hope for. The instrument cluster is classy and legible, the pedals have sports styling, brushed aluminium with rubber studs, and there's a leisurely spaciousness about both front and back rows.