The $153,000 Mercedes-AMG GLS 63 is an incredibly luxurious large SUV that has a 603-horsepower engine and enough luxury to trounce lesser rivals

Business Insider

• I tested a $153,000 Mercedes-AMG GLS 63, a high-performance luxury SUV that's quite large and extremely powerful.
• The 2021 Mercedes-AMG GLS 63 has a 603-horsepower, twin-turbo V8 engine and can haul its impressive bulk to 60 mph in about four seconds.
• My test vehicle was outfitted like a limo, raising the question of whether anyone who employs a chauffeur really needs the AMG treatment for their SUV.
• I couldn't answer that question, but the Mercedes-AMG GLS 63 captivated me with its power, grace, and style. It was among the most difficult vehicles to sum up that I've ever driven.

Some vehicles defy description. The Mercedes-AMG GLS 63 is such a vehicle.

I spent days cycling through all the usual clichés one might muster to characterize the brute charm and blunt capabilities of an immense and powerful automobile. Fathomless wells of torque vied against a crashing wave of gigantic surf met with freight trains surging through empty western lands and dueled with battleships pivoting in storm-ravaged seas.

The GLS invalidated them all.

So I inferred, logically, that among many other things this overtly hulking haute-luxe SUV is a literary critic, contemptuous of cliché.

Some cars are cinematic, in an epic way. The Ford GT supercar, for example, with its dramatic 2016 win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, repeating "Ford vs. Ferrari" history from 1966. But the Mercedes-AMG GLS 63 is more like a novel: a massive, doorstop tome crammed with assorted subplots and the rise and fall of serial climaxes. The GLS is a character itself, but it contains multitudes.

I grappled for a week with the grand narrative that the GLS presented. Here's how it went: