Seven is a sweet number in automotive design. Any more seats than that, and you’re limited to driving something potentially thirsty and hard to manoeuvre and park; fewer, and you risk being caught short when the kids beg to bring a few friends home from school or down to the beach.
So Mercedes-Benz performed a neat trick. By engineering a third row of seats into a truly compact SUV frame, it created an all-new model that succeeds where many others have stumbled, outshining even the highly practical Mercedes-Benz B-Class for versatility.
In doing so, the first-ever Mercedes-Benz GLB becomes the third model in the Mercedes-Benz passenger car range to be able to accommodate seven people, alongside a pair of much larger SUVs: the GLE (third-row optional) and the GLS. By comparison, the GLB has a compact footprint, which is perfect for urban areas, though it remains spacious and practical on the inside.
A versatile seven-seater with generous dimensions
On a cursory glance, the GLB does not appear so different from the wildly popular five-seat GLC SUV. Roughly identical in length and total cabin capacity, it’s only when you start to poke and prod that the GLB asserts its unique appeal.
That begins with the oft-requested two extra seats, comprising a third row that is fitted standard across the GLB range, bringing total seating capacity to seven. These additional seats are the ideal answer to have on hand when a couple of extra friends want to come home with the kids after school, or the junior basketball team deserves ice cream after a big game.
Accommodating two extra passengers works, in part, because the GLB is taller and squarer than the GLC behind the rear passenger doors, delivering capacious headroom. Meanwhile, the second row of seats sits on rails with a clever fore-aft slide that can liberate up to 14cm extra space for third-row passengers. The GLB also has a 10 centimetre-longer wheelbase than the B-Class – on paper it may not sound much, but even an extra 5cm per row can be the difference between cramped and comfortable.
Comfort features to boast about
In combination with front seat-backs that are deeply scalloped to optimise second-row legroom, the overall effect is that you can shapeshift each of the three rows to tailor comfort for every position.