Mercedes launches the new off-road friendly E-Class All-Terrain

First it was the saloon, then came the estate. Now Mercedes-Benz has launched the E-Class All-Terrain to round off the triplets of the E-Class family.

Like its on-roading sibling, it's a bit wider and longer meaning passengers have more knee-, leg- and elbow room, and the voluminous boot space grows to 1,830 litres with the seats down. It is taller, unsurprisingly, climbing to 1,497mm.

Style-wise, the E-Class All-Terrain has a fancy new front grille – it illuminates (woo) – special bumpers, high-gloss chrome guards on the front and rear undersides and finally, dark-grey wheel arch liners to really show off the muck. Only Merc could make off-roading look this elegant.

It's all about light off-roading, apparently – think dirt roads, gravel tracks, festival parking and picnics in obscure places. Nonetheless, the E-Class All-Terrain estate sounds as capable as its predecessor.

It's equipped with a swathe of off-roady goodness as standard. Sophisticated sensor-led air suspension, adaptive ground clearance and all-wheel-drive (obviously) are coupled with bigger wheels and cabin conveniences. The off-road screen and ‘transparent bonnet’ technology – forming part of its 360-degree camera suite – let you see what's underneath the car.

Following Merc’s family of modular engines approach, there are four- and six-pot engines in all flavours (petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid) to choose from. Notably, the PHEV variant gives you a respectable 62 miles of pure electric driving range. Nice.

Inside the typically plush cabin – complete with sustainability smarts and all the comfy cubbyholes and safety shebang you'd expect – there’s the MBUX infotainment suite. It’s complete with all the usual suspects; navigation, telephony and audio choices.

The optional 15.6in Superscreen can be supplemented with a passenger-side screen so front passengers can opt to watch ‘dynamic content’.

In a sign of the times, occupants can attend video calls (albeit not while driving), take selfies, play games or watch the never-ending stream of TikTok content, if they so wish. Indeed, when it comes to anything Mercedes Benz, there are lots of new 'metaverse' options.

Integration with Apple products to unlock and start the E-Class with a digital key, thus, come as no surprise and Merc has even worked out ways of sharing keys with as many as 16 people, while protecting the security of the car.

At this point, it seems the only thing this car isn't capable of is being an SUV. It’ll head to dealerships early next year, which – now we’re officially in Autumn – doesn’t feel that far away.