The RX is a little frustrating - it's going after Mercedes and BMW and Audi in a hotly-contested space and falls over in a couple of key areas. The media/sat nav system is hopelessly outdated and the drivetrain fails to deliver a significant performance or fuel benefit [although, given its 2.2 tonnes, perhaps it delivers a miracle].
It does come with a rock-solid, scandal-free reputation, a reputation for spectacular customer service, it has a lovely cabin and it's certainly an individual looker. For plenty of people, that's quite enough.
Verdict
The GLC300 Coupe isn't quite as great when it comes to being a family car as the regular SUV version of the GLC, and that's purely down to the sloping roofline which not only makes access more difficult to the second row but reduces boot capacity.
That said, the GLC300 Coupe makes a much better family car than a Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan, or any sedan.
Easy and enjoyable to drive, packed with great features and still practical, the GLC300 Coupe would still cut it as a good family car.
Design
There's a lot of RX and there's a lot going on in that creased, folded and teased sheetmetal. It's a unique design, with a huge 'spindle grille', big lights and the fast glass both front and rear.
It positively screeches Lexus DNA and was a polarising force on our driveway for the week. Most weren't sure, but knew for certain it was a Lexus.
Aggressively flared wheelarches like this aren't common on SUVs [although the squared-off ones are]. It's right up on stilts, but the 20s you find it rolling on help to reduce its visual bulk.
That wacky rear quarter glass reminds me of the BMW i3's but it's a Lexus SUV signature. It's quite striking. Do I like it? Not really, but that's completely subjective. You can tell, though, it's built tight as a drum.
Inside is a bit calmer, beautifully laid-out and built to last. The materials are almost all top notch, with lovely switchgear and the real leather is really nice.
There is absolutely nothing avant-garde in there [apart from maybe the pinstripe effect on the centre console], it's all terribly comfortable and easy on the eye. But not exciting, though not all Lexuses are.
This particular car is very US-centric and, if I may, a particularly sunny and humid part, so it can't be too wacky.
Design
Coupe SUVs aren’t for everybody… they’re not even for lots of people. But the design of an SUV with its roof cut down so that it meets the tailgate at an almost sportscar-like angle appeals to more than a few fans. The thing is they don’t just like the look, they love it, and they also probably enjoy how much the styling makes other people cranky.
To my eyes the GLC300 Coupe is the best execution of the bodystyle compared to those of BMW and Audi. There’s an elegance to the GLC300 Coupe and the AMG-line adds a tough look that only enhances the solid, powerful but pretty look.
The GLC Coupe is a mid-sized SUV and this new generation model is a bit bigger the previous one and now measures 31mm longer at 4763mm end to end, it’s 1890mm wide, 1605mm tall and has a wheelbase of 2888mm.
It’s also more aerodynamic than ever. No seriously, it’s drag coefficient is now 0.27 and it looks like a bar of soap - and it's about as slippery as one, too.
More curved surfaces await inside with a dashboard that pours down into the large centre console and it's adorned with a sloping and large portrait-style media screen.
At night or in tunnels the ambient lighting glows through the air vents and skirts the edges of the door trims, console and dashboard.
It’s a minimalist and high-tech cockpit with modern sports seats up front and a Nappa leather wrapped steering wheel with its twin blade design.
So, how does the coupe design work for family practicality? Let’s take a look.
Practicality
There is plenty of room inside this big unit, which is very welcome. Front seat passengers have lots of storage, such as a deep central bin under the armrest, dual cupholders and big door pockets with bottle holders.
Step into the rear and there is a ton of leg and headroom although the transmission tunnel intrudes slightly for the middle passenger. Chuck them out, drop the armrest and you have two more cupholders and each door has pockets and bottle holders.
The boot is pretty big considering the angle of the rear glass. You start with 453 litres [but an expanse of flat floor], which rises to 924 litres with the split-fold seats down. That seems conservative given just how much space you appear to have.
Practicality
SUVs are the most practical cars for families because of the better access to the cabin thanks to their large doors and slightly elevated ride height, their big boots with wide and tall hatch openings and their high flat rooflines. They’re essentially raised station wagons.
A coupe-style SUV still has four doors but they are less boxy due to the sloping roofline which falls away quickly to meet the tailgate at a lower point. The effect is a sporty-looking shape but practicality is lost in this exercise of form over function.
The second row doorways aren’t as large as those on the regular SUV. I did a side-by-side test and felt like I had to duck under the sloping roof when getting out of the back seat.
The smaller opening also made it trickier to lift my toddler daughter into her baby seat.
The sidesteps are also surprisingly handy for bigger kids and my eight-year-old used them every time when climbing into the car.
Cabin storage is outstanding with huge door pockets and cupholders in both rows, and while the 545-litre boot in the GLC300 Coupe is 80 litres smaller than the cargo capacity of the regular GLC SUV, it's bigger than the previous version of the Coupe.
As for people space, there’s enough headroom for me at 189cm tall in the back seat and heaps of legroom, even behind my driving position.
I’ve mentioned the lack of climate control in the second row, but also should point out that there are no USB ports back there either.
There are USB ports in the big centre console box upfront and a long cord should be able to make it to the second row.
There’s a wireless phone charger but it's housed in the bowels of the centre console too, and you’ll need to weave your hand while clasping the phone under the shiny black trapdoor, past the cupholders possibly with drinks in them and almost under the dashboard.
Price and features
The RX450h F Sport lightens your bank account of $102,460 before on-road costs, the only hybrid SUV within cooee of this price.
That nets you 20-inch alloys, a 15-speaker stereo, dual-zone climate control, heated and cooled electric front seats, reversing camera, that ever rare CD player, keyless entry and start, a solid safety package, reversing sensors, active cruise control, sat nav, a massive sunroof, auto LED headlights, head-up display, partial leather interior, power tailgate, auto wipers and a space-saver spare.
The Lexus media system is run from the gigantic dash-mounted screen that is shamed only by those massive Tesla units.
Sadly, the joystick-style control remains as does the very confusing software system that is less than delightful to use. It's such a shame that a tech-laden machine is let down by the world's most baffling entertainment system.
Once you get it working and understand it, it's okay, I guess, but several years into this job I still can't easily fathom how it works. And that naff analogue clock...
F Sport cars also pick up adaptive suspension and a several driving modes to liven things up.
Price and features
Mercedes-Benz is offering Australia just the GLC300 grade in both the SUV and Coupe body styles.
High-performance AMG variants are out overseas now and will arrive in Australia soon, too.
You can expect to pay more for these AMG beasts - a lot more than the $113,900 list price of the GLC300 Coupe.
Still the GLC300 Coupe does come standard with an AMG Line body kit and 20-inch AMG alloy wheels. LED headlights are also standard, so is the panoramic glass roof, tinted rear glass, proximity unlocking and a power tailgate.
Inside there’s synthetic leather Artico upholstery, sports heated front seats, Nappa leather steering wheel, an 11.9-inch media display with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and a head-up display. There’s also dual-zone climate control and wireless phone charging.
The value is good in terms of features, although the price is slightly higher compared to the rivals such as the BMW X4 xDrive30i [$106,400] and Audi Q5 Sportback 55TFSI [$110,200].
It’s worth pointing out, too, that the GLC300 Coupe is about $10K more than the GLC300 SUV version. Why? The coupe versions of prestige SUVs always tend to be pricier than their regular more boxy SUV siblings. Somebody in marketing will be able to explain why.
Having lived with the GLC300 Coupe with my family over the past few days I can say the proximity unlocking which works by touching even the back door handles is excellent, the tinted windows are dark and cut out much of the sun's glare, but there’s no climate control in the second row. There are air vents back there, which is good.
I found that on hot days the semi-transparent shade on the glass roof couldn’t stop the cabin from heating up quickly.
Under the bonnet
You can choose three different powertrains in the RX - a 3.5-litre V6, a 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder, or this one, the 3.5-litre V6 with hybrid.
As a series hybrid it can run for short distances on electric only before firing up the V6 to supply charging and motivation.
The 3.5 produces 193kW/335Nm along with the electric motor. That torque figure seems low and it probably is, but that's a function of the weird way of measuring torque from a hybrid unit. The combined power figure, however, is 230kW.
The hybrid system is hooked up to Lexus' CVT auto and sends power to all four wheels. Lexus says the 450h will complete the sprint from 0-100km/h in 7.7 seconds, which isn't bad for a 2210kg SUV.
Under the bonnet
The GLC300 Coupe has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine making 190kW of power and 400Nm of torque.
There’s also an overboost function which allows the engine to make an extra 17kW and 200Nm just for a brief moment, but that extra dollop of grunt combined with the regular output provides impressive acceleration [0-100km/h in about 6.3 seconds] for overtaking or moving quickly when you need to.
A smooth nine-speed automatic transmission sends the drive to all-four wheels.
The GLC300 Coupe is all-wheel drive and while there’s a setting for rougher terrain, along with one for comfort, eco and sport, but I’d make sure that it doesn’t get any more adventurous than tame gravel and dirt roads.
Mercedes-Benz refers to the GLC300 Coupe as a mild hybrid and this is because it has a 48-volt system and an integrated starter-generator.
This type of hybrid doesn’t use electric motors, doesn’t drive the wheels and won’t save much fuel, but it will provide efficiencies by supporting the engine and when coasting, plus will reduce petrol consumption to a small degree.
Efficiency
The official combined cycle figure is listed as 5.7L/100km. And, uh, yeah, we didn't get that. I did manage 8.9L/100km over the week, which included a long motorway run from Sydney up to the Blue Mountains [a roughly 160km round trip].
Efficiency
As we mentioned above the GLC300 Coupe's 48-volt mild hybrid system is not the kind of hybrid that will allow you to drive miles on electric power, nor will it dramatically reduce fuel consumption in the way a parallel, series or plug-in hybrid will. But every bit of efficiency helps.
Mercedes-Benz says the GLC300 Coupe will use 7.7L/100km after a combination of open and urban roads.
We had the GLC300 Coupe for just two days, but in that time my family covered 176km of regular daily usage which took in motorways but mainly suburban duties such as the school run, supermarket dashes, that sort of thing.
In our fuel test we measured 14.48 litres at the fuel pump which works out to be an on-test fuel use figure of 8.2L/100km and not far off the manufacturer’s claim.
While this fuel consumption isn’t overly high, a plug-in hybrid or even a parallel or series hybrid could return about 5.0L/100km or less.
Mercedes-Benz has dropped plug-in hybrids from its Australian range which is a shame because it would be good to see more efficient options in the GLC range. Of course if you want more efficiency from a Benz of the same size, there is always the fully electric EQB or EQC.
Driving
Right. So this is a salutary lesson about tyre pressures. The first few days the tyres were only pumped up to 200kpa [29psi]. That's an easy 100kpa [14psi] short of the required 300 [43psi].
Every time I, or my wife, went around a corner, the big Dunlop Sport Maxx SPs would squeal and squirm and it was most unsatisfactory.
So check your tyres, because the extra 100kpa makes all the difference. Also, the number of service stations it took to find a working pump was unacceptable. Pull your socks up, Sydney.
Anyway.
Correct tyre pressures enacted, the big Lexus turned into a comfortable, competent cruiser. Its motorway performance is super-impressive, purring along the M4 and it's ridiculously poor surface like it was born to it. Which it sort of was.
The hybrid drivetrain allied to the CVT is mostly whisper quiet. It's not the most responsive combination, the initial step-off of the electric motor's torque soon giving way to the rubber band effect of the transmission.
It doesn't feel as swift as the claimed 7.7 seconds and it would be nice if the drive select dial made a genuine difference to the throttle and transmission's response.
In the city, it's a proper wafter, moving about the broken down city streets of Sydney without fuss and a plush ride that's a bit of a surprise given the huge wheels and substantial weight of RX.
It's all very easy and pleasant but the wild looks do not match the experience. Which is not a criticism, just an observation.
Driving
There’s a lot to like here but the short version is the GLC300 Coupe has a comfortable ride, but good handling, with a responsive engine, although rear visibility through the small back window is poor.
If we drill down a bit further I can tell you that excellent cameras around the car will help you check to make sure kids aren’t running around behind you and that forward and side visibility through the window is good.
An important takeaway is that the GLC300 Coupe is easy to drive with light steering and an engine that’s mild and controlled in its power delivery.
The gear shifter is mounted on the steering column, in the same way an indicator lever is. So putting the car into Drive, Reverse and Park is so easy and means you don’t have to take your hands off the steering wheel.
As a family car I liked the good body control and composed ride. We have a small toddler that we can sometimes only get to sleep by taking her for a drive and we found that she could nod off and not be woken by potholes and speed bumps or too much leaning in the corners.
Safety
The RX ships with eight airbags [including knee airbags for both front seats], ABS, stability and traction controls, blind spot sensor, reversing camera, forward collision warning, forward AEB and reverse cross traffic alert.
There are three top tether restraints and two ISOFIX points.
The RX scored a maximum five ANCAP stars in January 2016.
Safety
The GLC was given the maximum five star ANCAP rating in 2022. There’s AEB, active lane keeping assistance and active blind spot warning and nine airbags including a centre airbag.
As mentioned above I especially liked the surround-view camera systems - which let you look right around the car - good for driveway safety and kids.
For child seats you’ll find two ISOFIX mounts and three top tether anchor points in the second row.
I was also impressed to see a space-saver spare wheel under the boot floor and not just a puncture repair kit.
Ownership
Lexus offers a fence-sitting four year/100,000km warranty with roadside assist thrown into the bargain for the same period.
Service intervals arrive at 12 month/15,000km and there is, sadly, no capped-price servicing.
Lexus will, however, promise you a car for the day or come and get your car from you and drop it back when the service is done. And it will be washed and vacuumed. The website makes a big deal about that.