Understated luxury: Mercedes-Benz takes on the iconic Cadillac Escalade

~ Mercedes-Benz takes on the iconic Cadillac Escalade.

Call it a battle of the big, luxury sport utility vehicles. German automaker Mercedes-Benz is taking on Cadillac and its iconic Escalade.

The 2007 Mercedes GL450 arriving in showrooms this spring is the first full-size luxury SUV to be sold in the United States by a European car company.

Stretching nearly 17 feet long, this largest Mercedes passenger vehicle has seats for seven, V-8 power, standard four-wheel-drive and first-in-the-class seven-speed automatic transmission.

It's the first Mercedes rated for Class IV towing, with a 7,500-pound towing capacity -- enough to pull a 30-foot boat or a three-horse trailer.

Starting manufacturer's suggested retail price, including destination charge, is in the "upper $50,000s," the company said. Final pricing hasn't yet been announced.

Cadillac's Escalade, the boldly styled star of numerous music videos and a favorite in Hollywood and among professional athletes, leads the full-size luxury SUV segment. Starting MSRP, including destination charge, is $57,280 for a 2007 Escalade with all-wheel drive.

A two-wheel-drive 2007 Escalade, due out in August, starts at $54,725, and Lincoln sells the big, luxury Navigator SUV, which starts at $53,075 for a 2006 four-wheel-drive model.

Mercedes officials hope to lure families who drive Mercedes sedans already but have full-size SUVs in their garages, too.

There's only one model of GL at introduction -- the GL450. But officials expect to add a diesel-powered model next year, and a sportier, higher-powered GL class is likely down the road, too.

Built on the platform of Mercedes' smaller SUV, the ML-Class, the GL450 looks on the outside like a beefed-up ML. There's nothing bold or particularly ostentatious about this SUV.

Inside, the GL450 also is subdued in a luxurious, everything-in-its-place fashion. Basically, the dashboard design, gauges and controls look like those in other Mercedes vehicles. In the tester, there was plenty of shiny, genuine wood swathed over the dashboard and center console, too.

There was an immediate sense of roominess and airiness in the GL450. It comes from the tall roofline, standard sunroof over the front seats and the fixed-glass window in the ceiling above the third row. It's also due to the good amount of distance between the two front seats.

Legroom in the front row is a generous 43 inches, compared with 41.3 inches in the Escalade.

The GL450's second row has a split 60/40 seat with passengers manually folding and flipping forward the smaller seat section when they want to climb into the two third-row seats.

The third row can accommodate adults, thanks in part to a deeper footwell area than what's found in some other SUVs.

But there's no way to remove seats from the GL450, and the cargo floor is quite high off the ground in the Mercedes SUV.

The GL450 is exceptionally quiet to ride in, and I enjoyed sitting up high off the road with good views over other vehicles. But the test vehicle transmitted so many vibrations through the seats, even front seats, that I experienced motion sickness.

A Mercedes official said the company had no other complaints about this problem and figured it was an issue isolated in the test vehicle.

Despite its size, the GL450 maneuvered like a smaller vehicle. Even parallel parking wasn't tedious.

There's only one engine -- a 335-horsepower, 4.6-liter, double overhead cam V-8 mated to the seven-speed automatic.

It capably powers the GL450, and torque of 339 foot-pounds starting at 2,700 rpm gives this more than 5,200-pound vehicle good get-up-and-go on mountain roads and in highway passing maneuvers. The sensation of power isn't exactly instantaneous at high speeds, but the GL450 doesn't struggle, either.