Of course it was a major improvement over the previous car, but since then, BMW has upped the ante and yet another sportscar maker, Porsche, was already happy chewing the SUV bullet.
The end result was a second generation M-Class that was more of an apex hunter than the previous version.
We have both the new X5 as well as the new M-Class on sale in India, with the former being a tad newer. For this test, we brought together the diesels - the X5 3.0d and the ML 320 CDI.
Design
Sure, both these cars look very similar to their respective last generation versions as long as you are not a thirteen-year old enthusiast on a four auto magazines-a-month-plus-assorted-website-feeds diet. But step closer and you notice the differences - both are less butch and less aggressive, as if they are part of a detailed plan to please Greenpeace.
The ML is typically German and was one of the first cars to feature the current school of styling that you get to see all the way down to the new C-Class.
The slatted grill with the big star in the middle and the pronounced wheel arches give it a big dose of character, but not so much the headlamp cluster which could have easily looked the part on a Daewoo Leganza.
Image: A man looks at a Mercedes M-class vehicle at a showroom in Shanghai | Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
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