MERCEDES-BENZ was a little late to the compact SUV party but it is making up for it now.

Having been one of the mainstays of the next segment up, it now has a solid foothold in the smaller end of the prestige SUV market, which has stabilised this year after solid growth in 2016.

Benz, which can lay claim to being a pioneer in the four-door coupe segment with the swoopy CLS, has translated that to its compact SUV brigade but the coupe currently represents less than a third of the GLC’s overall volume, down slightly year-on-year in part due to the arrival and growth of Jaguar’s F-Pace, but slao, according to Mercedes, because of issues with supply.

The GLC squares off against the BMW X3/X4 range, with diesel and petrol mainstream models as well as an AMG 43 performance model, but it’s the mid-range petrol and diesel models that do the heavy lifting in sales terms.