Oh yeah, fight to the death! These are two new Toorak Tractors ready to show up in a showroom near you. The difference is that these are the smallest compact SUVs these car makers have ever made. And they're poised to be in head-to-head competition.

This market segment is not new. The BMW X3 has been there for a few years already, but it was so ugly I didn't want to poison my site with pictures of it. It will not take part in this battle, because it is simply not stylish enough to compete with these two - looks count for a lot when a the target market is cashed up and super-trendy. The Audi Q5 is also kickin' around, but it is so bulky and lardy that it's hard to call it compact. It's largely irrelevant. Volvo and Mercedes promise stylish, luxurious and safe transport for a family of up to five people. Which one truly delivers? Which comes up trumps? Read on...

In a style contest, there really is no competition. The Mercedes is basically a smaller version of the GL-Class, hence GLK. If you see a "K" on the end of a Mercedes-Benz, then you know it is the smaller or coupe version of another Mercedes-Benz. The GL is just a 5 metre-long luxo-truck, and for the GLK, they chopped off half a metre. It looks oddly boxy and utilitarian, but never exactly tough, because of its lack of size and ultra-glossy paint. I'm also wondering how big Mercedes can possibly make the badge on the front grille - surely they don't get any bigger than this. The three pointed star looks like a fan that will generate a category 5 cyclone.

The Volvo is a smaller version of the XC90, and builds on that design theme by adding more curves and a truly sporty look. It really is a statement of how far Volvo has come in recent years in terms of design. It looks streamlined, detailed, and thoroughly modern in 2008. It's a far cry from some of the awful box-on-wheels-type cars that came out of Sweden in the nineties. It's quite hard for me to say this, but has Volvo created an SUV that is actually pretty? I'm going to be bold, and say yes. Emphatically.

Inside, the contest is far closer. The Mercedes carries over the theme from the successful C-Class, which looks really architectural, but probably a bit too busy for my liking. Too many squared off edges all over the place. It doesn't look unfinished exactly, just a bit hectic. I love the sporty-looking wheel, though, with the coolest audio buttons I've seen for a while - although its curvy design seems at odds with the rest of the interior.

The Volvo is more simple, if not minimalistic like the S40/V50. I still do not understand the "floating" centre console idea Volvo loves putting in its new cars. All it creates is a hole of empty space behind the centre console, which is unusable as a storage compartment. It has no function whatsoever other than to impress your friends - I don't know about you, but it wouldn't impress my friends. If I got enthusiastic about a "floating" centre console, my friends would think I had finally (finally...) lost my marbles. That being said, the XC60's interior is a nice place to be, is user friendly, and more spacious than the Mercedes (due to larger overall dimensions). I quite like the two-tone leather upholstery - it's a bit "cookies and cream", and a nice different, but possibly a bit gauche for some people. Bully for them. I like it. The instrumentation also balances form and function, and I am appreciative of the metallic strip around the circumference of the dial.

Driving? Well, do you think people who are buying these cars will care? They will care about how safe it is, if their darling children will be comfortable sitting on the rear seat, and in these respects, both cars are without peer. They are both very comfortable, and safe as houses. Safer, I'd say. And I don't know why just about every automotive journalist thinks they need to test how these cars perform off-road - they must be behind the times, and think that people want to go bush-bashing the outback in a Range Rover Sport. Both these cars are going to suck off-road, because they are not designed for it. If you want a XC60 or GLK because you want some butch outback action, you are base and ignorant. Simple as that.

Power probably isn't a huge priority for a new luxo-4WD buyer, but both the XC60 and GLK have plenty to offer. And I think everyone gets a little perverse pleasure out of seeing a big heavy SUV being able to rocket off into the horizon. The XC60 T6 has a turbocharged straight-six engine with 213kW on tap, which wins the power stakes here. The GLK350 has just a plain 3.5 litre V6 (200kW), which we've seen in Mercedes models before. It won't disappoint you either. Both cars have fuel-sipping diesel options, if you want to feel less environmentally guilty.

The verdict? There is ultimately little to separate these two cars, but the Volvo wins in my opinion. It seems like a far less offensive, more stylish, refined and livable way of carting little minions (kids) to and from Auskick each Saturday. The Mercedes is trying to be too sporty and masculine, and instead seems grotesque and over-done. I guess I'll never be butch enough, or enough of a pimp (like the "homies" in the top left picture) to look good driving the GLK, and I'm guessing neither will you. And I'll never stop having nightmares where I get sucked head first into the Mercedes' colossal propeller-like badge. If you must shout to the world that you own a Mercedes (no matter how fugly it is) then the GLK is for you. Otherwise, be a bloody Volvo driver. They're bloody good-looking these days.

BATTLE: Mercedes-Benz GLK-Class vs. Volvo XC60

Some dipstick product guru at Renault thought, in 1999, that people would buy this.

They had high, high hopes for the Avantime (yes, it's not just you, it sounds homosexual to me too), hoping it would be the beginning of a new market niche: the luxury and comfort of a coupe with the style and flexibility of an Espace-type MPV. Except it took two years to get it properly into production, because it took ages for it to become safe (blame the pillarless design of Patrick Le Quement). By 2001, the wow-factor of such a drastically "different" car had well and truly worn off, and because Renault had to make it safer, they also had to make it uglier.

People also realised that this car doesn't fulfil its purpose - it's wasn't as cool looking as a normal coupe (as soon as you see the two-tone colour scheme, you tend to back away slowly), and it wasn't as practical as even a normal hatch, because it had only two doors. Even France, whose weird and fugly population usually lap up weird and fugly cars, snubbed the Avantime. And it didn't help that similarly priced premium hatch Renault Vel Satis (below) also entered the market in 2001. Imagine the showroom of a Renault dealer.Customer: "I'd like something from your premium range of cars."
Dealer: "Well, would you like to have a look at our tastefully styled 4-door hatchback,
which will impress your friends, or would you like to have a look at our 2-door
fish on wheels, the Avantime, which will make all your friends die of heart
attacks caused by them laughing at how stupid you look in your car."
Customer: "Hmm... sounds like a tough decision, doesn't it? Well, I don't have any friends, so
I'll take a look at your Avantime."
The Avantime didn't win many friends either. Renault pulled the plug on the Avantime in 2003, only two years after launch, because it was losing so much money on this dog of a car. Only 8,545 were built.
It goes to show that when manufacturers design turds, they sell like turds. Nobody can remember how the Avantime drove, but didn't care, because they didn't want it. I'm the first person to advocate risky and original design, but the Avantime embodied everything that is wrong about "form over function" design - it just wasn't what people wanted, needed, or liked.

WTF?! #1: Ergo to Renault - Don't design turds!