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Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake

SHOOTING FOR THE STARS (some text hidden) --NONE--

By Jonathan Crouch

Mercedes-Benz has lightly updated the second generation version of its CLA Shooting Brake, a small estate with big aspirations. Jonathan Crouch reports.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 62

Mercedes-Benz certainly didn't play safe with this second generation CLA Shooting Brake, giving it the sort of bold, exciting styling that characterises its four-door Coupe stablemate. Look a little closer and you'll realise that the slinky roofline is a clever slight of hand from the stylists and there's real practicality on offer. Here's the lightly revised versoion of this second generation model.

Backgroundword count: 91

Like its predecessor, this second generation CLA Shooting Brake aims to offer a stylised interpretation of what a small estate should be. The original version was launched back in 2015 to sell alongside the stylised four-door coupe CLA; this MK2 model arrived in the Summer of 2019 and delivered a high-tech cabin that Mercedes reckoned took screen and infotainment technology to the next level. It gots a slightly bigger boot too. Three and a half years on, the brand has carefully improved this car with mild hybrid tech and smarter trimming.

Driving Experienceword count: 369

Mercedes markets this car as a 'sporty' alternative to its more conventional C-Class Estate. The CLA Shooting Brake's sporty styling leads you to expect that. Though this car shares its chassis, steering and braking architecture with A and B-Class models, it does get its own suspension set-up, with various changes made to improve comfort and make it a bit less crashy over poorer surfaces. There's torque vectoring to help with the handling and 'Direct Steering' to sharpen things up at the helm. Probably the most significant change with this updated version of the MK2 CLA Shooting Brake is that all the mainstream petrol engines now come with the brand's 48V mild hybrid system including the usual MHEV belt-driven starter-generator: that'll give you a 13hp boost when moving off. There are five mainstream engines, all of them four cylinder units mated to 7-speed auto transmission. As before, the petrol powerplant portfolio kicks off with a 1.4-litre unit, only available with front wheel drive and offered with either 136hp (in the CLA 180) or 163hp (in the CLA 200). Mercedes also offers a 2.0-litre mainstream petrol variant that must be had with 4MATIC 4WD; the 224hp CLA 250, which makes 62mph in just 6.4s en route to 155mph. If efficiency is key, you'll be interested to know that there are still diesel alternatives, all using the same 2.0-litre four cylinder engine mated to 8-speed auto transmission; the CLA 180 d with 114hp, the CLA 200 d with 148hp and the CLA 220 d with 188hp. If you need efficiency but don't want to fuel from the black pump, you'll be interested to know that, as before, the CLA range also provides a Plug-in Hybrid option, in the form of the CLA 250 e. As previously, this uses a 1.33-litre engine mated to a revised 15.6kWh battery. The powertrain has a system output of 218hp and an improved all-electric driving range of up to 51 miles (an 8 mile improvement on before). As in the pre-facelift line-up, there are also two high performance Mercedes-AMG 2.0-litre turbo petrol models, the CLA 35 4MATIC (with 306hp which gains the 48V mild hybrid system); and the top CLA 45 S 4MATIC+ (with 421hp, which doesn't).

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Scoring (subset of scores)

Category: Spacious Family Cars

Performance
70%
Handling
70%
Comfort
70%
Space
50%
Styling, Build, Value, Equipment, Depreciation, Handling, Insurance and Total scores are available with our full data feed.

This is an excerpt from our full review.
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