This is a very large vehicle, but the radical design and its sloping roof and sweeping front-to-rear lines tend to minimize the size and accent its sportiness at the same time. Up front, the R-Class uses the sports car grille theme with the large circled star in the grille, multi-element headlamps, a sporty upper and lower bumper look, and a fast-sloping hood and windshield to get to a drag coefficient of only 0.31, remarkably low for such a large vehicle.

The R-Class is long. It's 14 inches longer than the M-Class sport-utility and 9 inches longer than the Cadillac SRX. It's longer than the big Cadillac Escalade, by more than 4 inches. It's almost as wide as the Escalade, but only slightly taller than the SRX due to its deliberately low ride height and ground clearance. The rear side doors are very, very long, almost as long as those on a Maybach luxury sedan. That makes getting into and out of the second and third rows easy, but may cause problems in tight parking areas.

Depending on model and options, there are four different alloy wheel packages to choose from, in five-, seven- and ten-spoke designs. The AMG Sport package adds a whole new front end look, 19-inch AMG five-spoke wheels and tires, and a new rear treatment.

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