Mercedes-Benz CLS Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Mercedes-Benz CLS range
Prices: £46,255-£75,050 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 18-20 CO2 EMISSONS: [CLS320 CDI] 202g/km
Performance: [CLS320 CDI] 0-60mph 7s / Max Speed 153mph
Fuel Consumption: [CLS350] (urban) 26.7mpg / (extra urban) 47.9mpg / (combined) 37.2mpg
Safety: Twin front, side & window airbags, ABS, ESP
Dimensions: Length/Width/Height, 4913/1873/1403mm

BAROQUE AND ROLL STAR

Our Rating: 7.6 / 10

Is this a coupe with four doors or a saloon with a swoopy roof? Even Mercedes don’t seem too sure. Andy Enright reports on the latest Mercedes CLS

A cross between a saloon and a coupe, the Mercedes CLS is a highly distinctive proposition, particularly in the company of Mercedes’ other four-door offerings. Extremely refined and silky smooth on the road, it also injects a touch of spice with livelier handling than the E-Class which spawned it. Pick the right power option and running costs are more manageable than you’d think.

Conventional wisdom dictates that a coupe has two doors, occasionally three if you count a hatchback rear. Five doors, as boasted by the Mazda RX-8, is pushing things a bit but a quartet of doors is the one attribute that generally precludes entry to the coupe club. Possessed of four doors, you are usually a saloon. Saloons, as we all know, are often a bit staid, driven by middle management and chubby gentlemen the world over. The Mercedes CLS breaks that particular mould. It’s breathtakingly striking with flowing coupe-like lines, razor-edged detailing and superb finish. It also has four doors.

Walk around a CLS and – if you’re a student of automotive design – you may well feel a gnawing sense of unease. What is it about this car that’s so unusual? Yes, a four-door coupe isn’t exactly conventional but that isn’t it. After a while the realisation dawns that the CLS just plain doesn’t seem like a German car. History has taught us that German cars feature clean, pragmatic styling. Even the more extrovert and successful German designs, such as Audi’s TT, have a pared-down industrial hygiene about them. The CLS is different insofar that it is unashamedly Baroque, with an attention seeking ostentation suffused throughout it. In short, this car looks American.

Three petrol engines are offered to UK customers. The smallest petrol powerplant is no slouch, being a 292bhp 3.5-litre V6 with piezo-electric direct injection and a spray-guided combustion system. It will get the CLS 350 to 60mph in under 7 seconds and run on to an electronically-limited top speed of 155mph, which means that it’s quick enough to keep a BMW 630i honest. If you’ve got a little more money to throw at a CLS, you may well be tempted by the 388bhp V8-engined CLS 500. Here, you get a couple of extra cylinders offering a fraction better refinement and acceleration, which seems a rather questionable return on what is a significant premium. If you really hanker after a CLS that will lift its skirts and fly

The ‘four-door coupe’ billing of the CLS leads us to expect a degree of agility and athleticism beyond that of Mercedes saloons such as the E-Class with which this model shares its basic chassis. It delivers on this to an extent with a greater firmness to the suspension and a tauter feel under cornering loads but the CLS does not sacrifice the ride quality you expect from a four-door Mercedes costing what the CLS costs. The car cossets its driver and passengers while thrilling them with its majestic performance and effortless pace. It doesn’t feel particularly like a coupe though and certainly never like anything so uncouth as a sports car.

The CLS almost looks like an evolution of a Los Angeleno low rider from the late fifties and was always destined to be a very hot ticket in America, Mercedes’ biggest export market. It’s difficult to take in all of the details of the CLS styling at one go. The way the twin swage lines that run along the flanks become the leading edge of the front wheel arch is beautifully resolved and the big L-shaped front lights mark a welcome departure from the gawky ‘peanut’ headlamps seen on so many contemporary Benzes. Even the door handles look like something from an Art Deco design exhibition. The latest revisions include a revised radiator grille, LED taillights and shapelier mirrors.

Open the door and the surprises continue. The cabin is like no Benz currently offered. A vast plank of wood runs across the dashboard, punctuated by the ventilation controls and a deeply sunken instrument binnacle. Mercedes has kept the cabin fresh by introducing a revised three spoke steering wheel and white-faced instrument dials. Chestnut wood inserts improve the perception of quality and uprated infotainment systems also feature.

The CLS is a four seater with a chunky transmission tunnel dividing the two rear seats. It’s easy to forget that there’s an additional set of doors at the back, despite Mercedes not adopting Alfa Romeo’s clever hidden handl