A strange thing happened when I was tooling around our neighborhood in a 2026 Mercedes-Benz GLS450 last week. I started to notice other people driving them, seemingly everywhere. They were at Trader Joe’s, at Home Depot, and cruising randomly around Orange County, California. I saw a lot of them too. They were always there, I guess, but before I put myself behind the wheel, I hadn’t noticed them. I call this the Law of Automotive Similarity, which states that you will key in on others piloting whatever you happen to be driving.
The point is, you don’t expect to see a GLS450 multiple times in one day. And they look rather attractive in an unassuming, gray-colored way. It’s almost always a shade of gray. Or grey, as the Germans would say. Silicon Grey, in my case. If you think about it, they are quite well suited to the job at hand. And just what is that job? Shuttling people around in spacious comfort. They’re quite good at it.
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The current iteration of the GLS450 4Matic came out for 2020, and we tested one straight away. It was powered by a turbocharged inline six-cylinder, and it made 362 horsepower. It had a 48-volt hybrid system, too, but it didn’t move the needle in terms of adding any real power. It got to 60 mph in a respectable 5.5 seconds and covered the quarter-mile in 14.1 seconds at 99 mph. For 2024, Mercedes gave the GLS a mild facelift that took a bit of the Toyota Highlander look away; it also brought the power output up to 375 horsepower. That pony count continues for 2026. As you might expect, this latest GLS was a wee bit quicker, hitting 60 mph in 5.4 seconds and nudging quarter-mile speed up to 13.9 seconds at 100 mph even. Objectively, it’s not much different, but somehow getting up to 100 mph feels so much faster.
One thing that has even more clearly improved is transmission responsiveness. Just look at our 30-to-50-mph and 50-to-70-mph passing times to see how kick-down performance has changed for the better. The 2020 car did 3.4 seconds from 30 to 50 mph, but our 2026 did it in 3.0 seconds flat. The same is true of 50-to-70-mph performance, which went from 4.5 to 4.0 seconds. And these particular tests are carried out in the default Comfort mode too.
Even though power nudged up a hair, fuel economy went up too—at least in one category. Mercedes managed to improve fuel economy by 1 mpg in the EPA highway rating, going from 23 to 24 mpg. Combined (21 mpg) and city (19 mpg) stayed the same.
One thing our 2026 did not have in its favor was that it was shod with Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season tires, while our 2020 example wore P Zero PZ4 rubber. They’re the same size, but going from summer tires to all-seasons did a number on our numbers. Skidpad grip dropped by a tenth, going from 0.92 g to 0.82 g. Braking distance from 70 mph increased, too, by 24 feet, from 154 feet to 178 feet.
The tires don’t change the way the GLS drives normally, as it steers and handles admirably when you’re not pushing, which is how all the GLS450s described by the Law of Automotive Similarity were being driven. Still, our test driver back in 2020 probably had his example in Sport mode, like all the cool kids. The ride was nicely buttoned down and made all the right moves. Our 2026 behaved similarly, but I also spent a lot of time in Comfort mode, because that’s the key-up default. In Comfort, there is a very slight amount of wallow and pitch, as if the front and rear springs aren’t speaking exactly the same language when going through dips and over certain types of segmented bridges. It’s subtle, but it is there. The cure is to tighten up the damping by going to Sport mode. It doesn’t feel quite as elegant, but you don’t notice the extra motion either.
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The interior is the same as before, which is to say plush and accommodating. The front seats are spacious, and the rear seats offer even more room than the fronts. The third row is still pretty decent if you’re not too tall, and I did like the captain’s chairs in the middle row for the option of simply squeezing back there. Mostly, though, I kept the third row folded down for more cargo room. It goes from 17 cubic feet with the third seat in place to 43 cubic feet with it folded.
The base price of a 2026 Mercedes-Benz GLS450 has crept up in six years, as you might expect, and it now will set you back $91,400. Ours had but a single option that pushed the price up to $96,400, the $5000 Manufaktur Edition package that brought the Silicon Grey paint, special AMG wheels, the captain’s chairs, a black headliner, and some other things related to colorways. Not a bad package, if not for the spelling and pronunciation difficulties. Whatever spec they have, maybe all of the people that are unwitting participants in the Law of Automotive Similarity are onto something.
Specifications
Specifications
2026 Mercedes-Benz GLS450 4Matic SUV
Vehicle Type: front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 6-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $91,400/$96,400
Options: Manufaktur Edition package (Manufaktur Silicon Grey paint, black leather, natural-grain Grey Oak wood trim, 21-inch AMG twin-spoke wheels, captain’s chairs, black headliner), $5000
ENGINE
turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 24-valve inline-6, aluminum block and head, direct fuel injection
Displacement: 183 in3, 2999 cm3
Power: 375 hp @ 6100 rpm
Torque: 369 lb-ft @ 1600 rpm
TRANSMISSION
9-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arms/multilink
Brakes, F/R: 14.8-in vented, cross-drilled disc/13.6-in vented, disc
Tires: Pirelli Scorpion Zero A/S
F: 275/45R-21 107H M+S MO
R: 315/40R-21 111H M+S MO
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 123.4 in
Length: 205.0 in
Width: 77.0 in
Height: 71.8 in
Passenger Volume, F/M/R: 54/57/39 ft3
Cargo Volume, Behind F/M/R: 85/43/17 ft3
Curb Weight: 5416 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 5.4 sec
1/4-Mile: 13.9 sec @ 100 mph
120 mph: 21.7 sec
Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 6.1 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 3.0 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 4.0 sec
Top Speed (gov ltd): 129 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 178 ft
Braking, 100–0 mph: 357 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.82 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 22 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 21/19/24 mpg
Dan Edmunds was born into the world of automobiles, but not how you might think. His father was a retired racing driver who opened Autoresearch, a race-car-building shop, where Dan cut his teeth as a metal fabricator. Engineering school followed, then SCCA Showroom Stock racing, and that combination landed him suspension development jobs at two different automakers. His writing career began when he was picked up by Edmunds.com (no relation) to build a testing department.
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