We Test Luxury SUVs for a Living. This One Earned the Top Spot in 2006.

[This story originally appeared in the July 2006 issue of MotorTrend with the headline "State of the Heart, State of the Art."] For all their inherent capabilities, the majority of premium SUVs sold in the U.S. spend most of their lives challenging nothing more demanding than a rain-slicked motorway or a compact-only space in a supermarket car park. But there’s a simple rationale for this well-documented fact: Most owners find ramping up the accelerated depreciation on these high-dollar assets by subjecting them to a run up the Rubicon Trail about as much fun as undergoing quadruple bypass surgery without anaesthetic.

With that fundamental truth in mind, we gathered three top-line players that excel in cool, comfortable, and versatile transport for real-world users. All feature standard four- or all-wheel drive, seats for seven, and the power to make the good life even better while holding plenty in reserve for dealing with the most foul forces of nature.

The familiar face here is the Land Rover LR3 in top-line HSE trim. Although it alone boasts the proper 4WD hardware—including a dual-range transfer case and height-adjustable Terrain Response suspension—to accommodate those who do indulge their survivalist tendencies on a regular basis, the LR3 is no less at home contending with the rigours of Rodeo Drive. Matching skills with this icon of modern SUV-think are two new-for-2007 faces, the Cadillac Escalade and the Mercedes-Benz GL450. In contrast to the LR3, which uses Land Rover’s hybrid body-frame construction, the Cadillac is a conventional body-on-frame exercise based on the new GMT900 truck platform, while the newest member of M-B’s expanding sport/utility family is a true monocoque offering that shares a good deal of design particulars with its M-Class and R-Class kin. For the record, the Merc does offer standard downhill-speed regulation and hill-start assist features. Also available is an off-road package with low-range gearset and enhanced ride-height capabilities, an extra not on this particular example—nor on any Escalade’s option sheet. One final note: The original plan had an Audi Q7 slotted into this mix, but scheduling issues prevented it from making an appearance. Stay tuned.

Picking up right where its predecessor left off, the new Escalade reigns supreme in the Made-You-Look competition. Its more tautly rendered sheetmetal sports an even healthier dose of bling that tends to make the other two, while fashionable in their own right, appear downright understated. The ’Slade’s high-profile flash extends to its interior as well, where soft surfaces abound and the interweaving of aluminium, leather, wood, and wood-like substances makes the kind of endearing first impression that was so palpably absent in times gone by when this Wreath-and-Crester was little more than a tarted-up Tahoe/Yukon.

The Mercedes and Land Rover take more subtle approaches to people-pampering, but each racked up significant driver—and passenger—points as the miles rolled by. All three vehicles offer loads of the right stuff when it comes to power assists and upmarket amenities, although a number of odd anomalies can be found in the specific feature mix of each. The GL450 shares much with the M-Class in this area as well, including real burled-walnut trim and making leather upholstery an option—and one that was conspicuously missing in our otherwise loaded tester. Like the Cadillac, it did include extras like a navigation system and rear-seat DVD player.

Our GL450 also boasted the best seats of the lot, headed by optional multicontour, supportive front buckets that endear themselves by providing a pulsing back massage on demand, even when wrapped in baseline M-B Tex and not Nappa hides. Angular and nearly devoid of brightwork, the LR3’s space-efficient interior nonetheless laid claim to the nicest leather and plenty of neat touches in HSE spec, headed by navigation and premium harman/kardon audio systems, tri-zone air-conditioning—an Escalade standard and GL-Class add-on—plus an optional cooler box in the centre console. Where the Cadillac also makes Bose sound and a power rear tailgate inclusive, Mercedes relegates a primo h/k LOGIC7 Surround Sound setup and electric hatch activation to the GL450’s extras list.

As for driver-impacting downsides, the Escalade’s rather coarsely indexed and manual-only/tilt-only steering column seemed decidedly out of place in a vehicle that bottomlined at $66,110, and even the welcome availability of power-adjustable pedals couldn’t offset the continuing absence of express-up power windows. Tour much in bright sun and the glare off of the Cad’s aluminium dash trim also gets offensive, impacting readability of its clock and optional nav system. And while the Escalade’s buckets look sharp, they proved short on lateral support. Beyond the aforementioned lack of leather, our $68,075 as-tested GL450 drew the biggest fire for its still complex COMAND system, less user-friendly Navigation package, and undersized side mirrors. Heading the LR3 gripe roster are the austere/industrial appearance of some trim elements and more hard-touch surfaces than expected in a vehicle that rolls out the door at $56,175.

Seats for seven and room for seven have rather different meanings for each of these three, as dimensional specs can sometimes be deceiving whether they’re describing the Escalade’s 2+2+3 configuration or the 2+3+2 layouts in the LR3 and GL450. Despite offering the most shoulder room in both rows of rear seats, the Cadillac has less second-row legroom than the GL450 and trails both in rear-cabin headroom. All three can accommodate a pair of six-footers in their second tier, but neither the 60/40 seat in the GL450 nor the 35/30/35 modular units in the LR3 provide nearly as hospitable a welcome to those occupying the centre spots.

The most stunning contrasts, however, lie in the innermost sanctums. While split-benches in the Land Rover and Mercedes will accept average-size adults for short to mid-distance treks, the Cadillac’s abysmal 25.4 inches of legroom—barely an inch more than an SRX—and knees-to-nose seating posture puts 40-plus percent of its people space into the “I’ll pass, thanks” category for anyone but naughty children.

The largest of our SUV set fared little better when it came to impromptu utility. Where the third row folds flat into the floor on its rivals—and raises/lowers at the push of a button in the Merc—the Cadillac’s 50/50 seat elements only fold in place and must be removed to gain full use of the space. In fairness, pulling the third row and dropping the second does open up a huge 108.9-cubic-foot bay, a figure that handily bests both the LR3 (90.3) and the GL450 (83.3).

But save for those once-a-decade big-screen TV runs, it’s hard to fault the simpler and more widely embraced approach to seat stowage used by the rest of the industry. We have no idea where the claimed 16.9 cubic feet of space behind the Escalade’s rear seat may be lurking, but from a practical standpoint, everyone who looked at it deemed the GL450’s 14.0-cubic-foot capacity far more configurable for any payload this side of unboxed ping-pong balls.

Diversity of character extends to the drivetrain setups of this trio as well. The LR3 HSE packs a 4.4-litre DOHC V-8 that makes 300 horsepower and 315 pound-feet of torque backed by a six-speed manumatic with a console-mounted lever. At the other end of the spectrum, the 6.2-litre OHV V-8 with 403 horses and 417 pound-feet of twist fitted to the Escalade is paired with a six-speed automatic that provides a Manual mode controlled by buttons on the handle of its column-mounted shifter. The GL450 travels yet another design path. Its new 4.7-litre DOHC V-8, rated at 335 horsepower and 339 pound-feet of torque, is matched with a seven-speed automatic that puts basic activation functions on a dash-mounted miniwand and offers manual-shift capabilities via rocker switches on the steering wheel.

It wasn’t all that surprising to find the LR3—smallest outside, but at 5798 pounds the heaviest of this trio—laboured hardest to keep pace on anything but level terrain and could muster but an 8.8-second best in the formal 0-to-60-mph sprint. Far less expected, the Escalade and GL450 ran identical 6.4-second times to that benchmark speed, despite the superior power/weight and torque/weight ratios for the heavier Cadillac. The Merc’s flatter torque curve (all 339 pound-feet are on hand from 2700 to 5000 rpm), tighter gear splits, and quicker-responding automatic played a big role in helping it maintain that edge through the quarter mile and right on up to 100 mph.

With varying staff opinions on placement of the GL450’s shift switchgear, no one contested the superior speed and smoothness of the on-demand changes this gearbox delivered. Things skewed differently when it came to bleeding off speed. Top honours in the 60-to-0-mph competition went to the LR3 with an impressive 121-foot mark followed by the Mercedes at 125 and the Cadillac at 130.

Spring rains gave us a chance to put these elegant haulers through their paces in wet and dry conditions, and here, too, their individual personalities emerged. Each arrived wearing all-season tyres on alloy wheels, although the LR3 had HSE-standard 255/55 rubber on 19-inch rims, while the GL450 upgraded from 265/60HR18s to 275/55HR19s, and the Escalade pumped up its rolling stock from baseline 265/65s on 18-inch wheels to 285/45HR22s, the biggest fitments currently offered on any vehicle in its segment.

Saddled with the least desirable tallness/track spec, the LR3 displayed the most body roll and was subject to the greatest degree of crosswind buffeting. It also emerged the walkover winner—or loser, depending on your point of view—in the “my governess is stricter than yours” challenge match. Well documented by previous encounters dating back to its 2005 SUV of the Year testing, the Land Rover’s ever-vigilant stability control steps in early, often, and definitively to help prevent manmade handling disasters. The evidence was in the LR3’s electronically hobbled 50.1-mph slalom speed, a full seven mph under the best passes of the Cadillac and Mercedes.

The GL450’s standard Airmatic suspension allowed for a tad more enthusiasm in Sport/Normal/Comfort modes, but even with ESP in the nominal “off” position the nip and tug of selective ABS came to the fore when corners tightened up even moderately. While its demeanour never lets you mistake it for anything but a full-size, truck-based SUV, the Escalade can be driven the most aggressively of this lot, primarily because it’s possible to disengage the StabiliTrak system. Even when standing guard, GM’s electronic suspension sentinel has a more subtle engagement than the systems in either of the other vehicles. That said, after putting all of them through their subjective and objective paces, the GL450 still made the strongest case when it came to combining control, compliance, and overall handling confidence.

Depending on where your priorities lie for choosing an SUV that opens on the far side of $50K, any one of these three could well be a proper fit. For this confrontation, we put sophisticated on-road skills, three rows of useable seats, and lots of real-world utility on the front line, and came to an inevitable but far from overwhelming conclusion. Were off-road prowess to be more heavily weighted, the LR3 would’ve made a solid play for victory. Even in this face-off, it remains a paradigm of superb packaging that also offers an attractive mix of flexibility, comfort, and outstanding value.

Raising its visual profile, build quality, and sophistication beyond that of its successful forebear, the new Escalade also served notice that it’ll remain an impact player, and one with even broader market appeal. In the end, its less-than-stellar interior space solutions left us feeling that bigger is not always better.

That brings us to the equally new GL450. With its highly evolved powertrain, impressive dynamic envelope, and interior packaging capable of going head to head with anything that’s available on the market, this new Mercedes-Benz simply worked its way to the top of the score sheets with a winning personality and all-around performance that more than offset any of its minor shortcomings.

As for the ability of any of these primo lifestylers to cope with the endless upward spiral of petrol prices (at almost four bucks a gallon), well, that’s a story for another time.

Capable, comfortable, and enthusiastic, the GL450 makes an impressive, albeit pricey statement about the current state of the SUV art. Note to product planners: It’s time to make leather standard.

An off-road legend that plays on tarmac as well as any go-anywhere SUV can, it continues to prove that good things can indeed come in small packages. Needs a bit more muscle to match up with this pair.

The Blinginator returns in an even bigger and better way, but its head-turning presence can’t offset some questionable packaging compromises for buyers who demand practicality over profile.

*SAE Certified **Electronically limited