Time and time again, it’s been proven that one big tweak can make a car way more attractive. Chrysler offering dual sliding doors on its third-generation minivans turned those things into game-changers. BMW dropping a twin-turbocharged inline-six into the 3 Series turned it from an excellent sports sedan into a tuner legend. Oh, and can you imagine what the Corvette would be remembered as today if Zora Arkus Duntov didn’t come along? In that vein, this is the new Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake, and while it’s not a massive visual improvement over the new CLA, turning a swoopy-roofed sedan into a wagon completely changes the proposition.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first so-called CLA Shooting Brake Mercedes has offered, even if shooting brakes typically feature two passenger doors rather than four. The luxury automaker’s seen demand in Europe for a small, reasonably priced yet upscale wagon for the past decade, unveiling the first-generation CLA Shooting Brake in Los Angeles back in 2015 as some form of cruel practical joke. Yeah, prior iterations of this model haven’t made it to America, but now it seems that Mercedes-Benz finally has one it should sell in America.
For one, the electric powertrain is packing some serious heat. Instead of a fairly ordinary turbocharged four-cylinder engine, Mercedes-Benz has gone with an 85 kWh battery pack and a 268-horsepower electric motor driving the rear wheels on the volume CLA 250+ model. The result is a claimed zero-to-62 mph time of 6.8 seconds and a driving range of 472 miles on the WLTP cycle, or only 16 fewer miles than an EQS 450+ that’s rated at 350 miles of range on the more demanding EPA cycle. In North American driving, this electric CLA wagon should be good for more than 300 miles of driving, a big league number for an entry-level EV. Want to juice up quickly? A DC fast charging peak of 320 kW is properly spicy, playing in a league beyond many 800-volt architecture cars, including the Hyundai Ioniq 5.
Then there’s the practicality, which is mostly give with a little bit of take. Admittedly, 16 cu.-ft. of rear cargo space with the rear seats up isn’t that impressive when a Volkswagen Golf GTI offers 19.9 cu.-ft. of space back there, and 45.5 cu.-ft. with the seats folded is 2.1 cu.-ft. down on the old CLA Shooting Brake, but not only is that an extra ten cu.-ft. of seats-down cargo space over a GTI, there’s also a 3.56 cu.-ft. front trunk usable at any time, regardless of how many passengers you’re carrying. Those are the sort of numbers that take the CLA 250+ Shooting Brake into crossover territory, all while offering a reasonably small frontal area and outstanding range.
As for the tech, if you’ve seen the new CLA sedan, you’ll know what good and bad things to expect. Bringing actual buttons and switches back to the steering wheel instead of capacitive touch controls is welcome, but I don’t think any customer in their right mind would’ve asked Mercedes-Benz to copy the window switches of the Volkswagen ID.4. High-power 100-watt USB-C ports will be great for charging laptops, but I have a feeling more people would want a second glovebox over a passenger screen. If you don’t pop for the passenger screen, you get backlit glossy trim that seems like a magnet for fingerprints, but a standard hands-free tailgate seems like it could be genuinely helpful, and standard heated front seats with four-way lumbar adjustment promise the luxury you’d expect from a Mercedes-Benz.
Oh, and if you don’t want a 268-horsepower electric powertrain, Mercedes-Benz will offer more choice. The CLA 350 4MATIC features dual electric motors with a combined output of 348 horsepower and a zero-to-62 mph time of five seconds flat, and an unusual hybrid powertrain will follow along soon after with a 48-volt system that can actually propel the car during light cruising and in town.
Will we see the new Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake in North America? Probably not, and that bums me out. Sure, it still has the trout-mouth of its trunked sibling, and some of the UX decisions don’t seem great, but I can’t help but feel that more cargo space is more appealing to North Americans than less cargo space.
Top graphic image: Mercedes-Benz
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It lacks both attractiveness and utility.
Man, no amount of wagonization can save this car form how hideous it is.
Also, isn’t a Shooting Brake a 2-door wagon??
To me, the brake represents an abrupt stop in the back-end of the vehicle.
Like AMC Gremlin, Ferrari 250, or any old Volvo wagon.
This one looks like it’s still oozing out the back, trying to revive styling from the late-’90s bubble era Ford Taurus..
Hmmm… I’ve only owned a single (late-90s) Benz and while it was a nice car to drive, it was truly awful to own… the second-most unreliable car I’ve ever had, the first being a late-80s Audi. From everything I’ve absorbed about MB since then, I don’t have the impression that their quality has improved since my experience. On the contrary, it only seems to have slipped while they load up their cars and SUVs with all kinds of electronic frippery, doo-dads, and ambient lighting, etc… none of which does much to improve the ownership experience. All of it is just going to make the cars harder to fix and more costly to own when they’re 10 years old, let alone 20.
I like wagons. I like small wagons. My current daily is a slighly ratty 36-year-old Volvo 240 wagon, which, by modern CUV/SUV standards, is actually quite diminutive despite it having a lot of cargo room inside.
Specwise (range/power mostly) this CLA EV wagon seems appealing, though I’ve no idea what the base car will cost. It’s not exactly pretty (at all) and that sloping rear roof really kills the cargo-carrying ability of the car. Unless it were available to me really cheaply, I can’t imagine I’d be up for another MB given their unreliability, high cost of ownership, rapid depreciation, etc…
What was pretty wild for me was when we sold off our ’94 Jeep GC and replaced it with an ’06 Honda CR-V and it had more usable interior space than the GC and more than twice the MPGs. Sure, the Jeep could tow more, but we didn’t have any trailers.
I bet your experience isn’t unique. How else to explain the CR-V (and Rav4) becoming the ubiquitious ‘one car for everything’ they are today? 🙂
The first generations of both were really too small for a modern American family. I barely fit in the back row of a 1st Gen RAV4 and man that thing had a lot of road noise. And our CR-V wasn’t exactly quiet on the cement and stone pavement sections of some of our freeways.
But they both have come quite a way. I’d have to drive both to see which one I’d pick today. But with only 65K on an Accord, I probably won’t have to make that decision any time soon.
You’d think anything called a “shooting brake” would do well here in the US.
Sadly, that’s true!
I sure wish we’d get shit like this instead of MOAR TRUCKS with “V8 badges of protest” but nooooooooo
Edit: wait…you all hate this?! What?! Someone photoshop it brown and tell the Autopian commentariat that it has a rotary range extender and it’ll be beloved in an instant
If only it wasn’t so blobby on the outside and tacky on the inside…
It’s a hookah lounge located inside of some sort of large catfish/carp
I don’t find it as terrible as everyone else. It looks… fine. Better than the EQ whatever blob MB’s. Ditch the passenger screen and the middle light bar on the front and it almost looks like a regular car. Unlike most EV crossovers, this one hides the height of the battery in the floor pretty well. Overall I’d take this over most of the other EV’s simply for having good range and a wagon body.
On first glance I thought this was part 2 of the Rodius vomit saga
Yup! That was my first thought, too. The rear view definitely has a Rodius vibe
More proof that Mercedes Benz has truly lost their way.
The rear 3/4 picture looks like 2 different cars stuck together. The roof slope needs to be a bit gentler and the hatch needs to be a little more upright. It would look better and be more practical.
i’m so confused about the CLA it used to be the entry level “budget” Mercedes and now it’s a premium option?
The CLA is still Mercedes’ entry level car starting at $44.4K The GLA is slightly cheaper @ $43K
Hate to be that guy, but here I am. This is no shooting brake since it has 5 doors. Shooting brakes are a 3 door affair. Mercedes likes to break the rules. See the CLS which they call a “coupe” with 4 doors.
It looks kind of like an ugly TourX
Are they going to keep insisting on the flop that has been this jellybean design language? This is Mercedes’ “Bangle Butt” stage and it’s really, REALLY not working.
Outside the bangle butt, I thought a lot of those BMWs actually had some nice details and design language… this just doesn’t have any redeeming looks
I have to admit I utterly hate the way this car looks but otherwise am intrigued. It’s like they took everything I don’t like about the original Ioniq6, scaled it up by 10, then let their model sag in a toaster oven for 30 minutes and pulled it out just as they smelled melting plastic.
BTW I’d love to hear the Bishop and Adrian take on the Ioniq6, I don’t think there’s ever been a car before that got so many things right while also getting many things so wrong in the design.
In modern terms, a shooting brake is simply a station wagon (or Estate, if you’re on the left side of the pond) that someone wants to sound cooler than it is. Can we please not?
I like shooting brakes. There, I said something nice. Now, for the rest of the story …
This is not a shooting brake and just saying so don’t make it so. That’d be like calling the Gulf of Mexico something else and insisting the rest of the world is wrong. That would be stupid and so this is not a shooting brake. Small wagon? Sure, whatever.
I’m going to refer to it as a hooting mistake, as in who, who, who could find this crate attractive? The sagging ass, the drooping jowls, the Frankenstein monster worthy scars down its side flanks. This is ugly. OK, that’s harsh, so … it’s deliciously ugly. Better?
Much of the time I’m sad when I hear a car company isn’t going to bring a new offering to the US, but not this time. Welcoming this shitting brake into the US would be like embracing a kid with full blown measles into a school of unvaccinated children. Only a conspiracy spouting, brain worm addled, lifelong drug burnout, roadkill bear eating, pampered scion of the political elite would think that’s a good idea, or that this is a good looking car, much less a shooting brake. So please MB, let CLA stand for Can’t Land in America.
I know, I know, I’m coming across as too ambivalent, but I didn’t want to write what I truly think of the CLA Shooting Blanks, because I didn’t want to offend those with delicate sensibilities. Unlike Mercedes, which obviously doesn’t care who it offends. Or is that whom?
Droopy and sad
I just don’t care for the looks of modern Mercs. They look simultaneously bulbous and frumpy. They needs to get their act together in the styling department. The only modern-ish Merc that I care for the looks of is the AMG GT coupe. Please, take me back to the late 90’s through mid 2000’s styling of Mercedes vehicles. (Maybe even extending to the early 2010’s if I’m being generous.) I still miss my ’99 E320. What a lovely sedan that was.
On the topic of EVs, do any automakers other than Tesla offer in-car streaming apps or a full web browser? I’ve had my Tesla Model 3 for a few years now and the in-car streaming apps are a lifesaver when we’re charging at Superchargers. Love the looks of some other EVs but, without the in-car streaming apps, they’re just a no-go for me.
But why does it have to look like a sad catfish?
Exactly, though my mind immediately went to blobfish.
someone needs to carry on the 4th gen Camaro legacy
Is it reaaaally cargo space if the roof squishes down and pinches off at the end like a turd? What a ridiculous shape.
The Volvo V60 does the same thing, but somehow manages to look very slick. But once you open the hatch, it reveals the disappointing lack of space. I feel like I could fit more into a standard VW Golf.
They need to sell it here
Some of the angles make it look like it needs to fart. Maybe it needs to pee, too. Not all pee pee time is poo poo time or poot poot time, you know. All poo poo time is pee pee time, but poot poot time? Not all poot poot time is pee pee time OR poo poo time. Like standalone pee pee time, you can just have poot poot time.
Just beware the combo poot poot time and poo poo time. That’s how you get the sharts.
…what was I talking about again? Oh, a wagon. It looks ballooned out, bro. I’ve definitely been there before and it’s not fun. Let the Merc fart.
I’m really curious about what kind of market research automakers have done into who buys EVs. Obviously, over the last couple of years, the regulatory framework in place made it seem necessary to get as many people into them as possible, so I guess given that, it made some sense to go after the “default car” market with crossover after crossover. But the regulatory winds have shifted, automakers are reevaluating their strategies, and it seems pretty clear that the average American still isn’t really ready to go EV if nobody’s telling them they have to. So we’re kind of back in early adopter territory to some extent.
All of which is to say, I’m not sure that the overlap between people who actively want an EV and people who want just a “default car” is really that big. People who actually want EVs tend to be pretty well-informed and also care about the other measures of efficiency that will help them maximize the functionality of their car—things like smaller footprints, better aero, lighter weight, etc. You know what has almost all of the functionality of a crossover, plus all of those advantages? A FREAKIN’ WAGON.
It’s insane to me that nobody’s considering who actually wants these things, and what they want from them, because I think the market for something like this—yes, even in North America—if it’s viewed as a subset of the overall market for EVs, not all cars, would be significantly higher than any of these companies expect, but they just stand on the conventional wisdom that “Americans don’t want wagons,” instead of looking at who does want wagons, who wants EVs, who has the income, the lifestyle, the brand loyalty, etc.
Edited to add: I think the popularity of the Jetta/Golf TDI Sportwagens is a good case study…there’s obviously a market for people who want a small wagon that makes a solid, logical, environmentally savvy (oops) case for itself. Also a good case study for how well a product can do when it is both a) compelling and b) without direct competition.
The Kia EV6 is basically a wagon. Last year was their best year and they sold 22K in the USA with very high discounts.
I owned a 2014 Golf Sportwagen TDI. I like it but it was in no way popular. In 2019 VW only sold 37,000 of the entire Golf family combined (Golf, GTI, R, Sportwagen, eGolf, and Alltrack)
Counterpoint: Wagons are for people who are “into cars.” EV buyers are not “into cars.” So an electric version of the default car is what they want.
Also note that crossovers are popular because they offer stuff normies like: better visibility, higher step in height, reassuring AWD.
All of the above is pure speculation, informed only by the fact that EVs don’t seem to offer the kind of driving experience that appeals to enthusiasts. I like wagons, but my idea of Full Self Driving is using both hands and both feet. I believe many EV enthusiasts have a different notion of Full Self Driving.
Something something “akshully Americans don’t need something with more than 100 mile EV range” something something “just rent a car if you have to go far” something something… all those super convincing arguments of the past few years by people heavily pushing EVs. I agree with you that it still kinda seems early adopter. I am admittedly a convert to it, but it’s not without its downsides and I can readily accept it’s not really mass market ready. If you meet the kinda specific criteria it can work amazingly (lessened maintenance and 1/3rd the cost of fuel for my wife’s commute).
Man a wagon would rule. Truly I’d kill for an ID Buzz for a future family car if it actually worked, but VW messed up so bad it’s terrible
A shooting brake with 4 (well, 5) doors? Between this and the AMG GT 4-door Coupe I guess body type definitions just don’t matter at Mercedes anymore. Looking forward to the new 4-door hard top G550 Roadster.
Words have no meaning, there are no laws and nothing matters anymore.
…
Is it time to steal an Amphicar yet, mount a cannon to its car-boat hood and float off towards the abyss?
Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria.
I look forward to buying a Mercedes Spyder with 3rd row seating.
I still love the see the Ghost of the R-Class pervading so much of their current design language.
But that rear end has worn out its welcome for me. Just too many of them around. EQS, EQE, and the EQB (which I actually have a bit of a soft spot for, it’s just so unpretentious for the brand)
Can someone provide the company’s reasons for not importing these, even on an on-demand basis?
I mean, I get it, they don’t feel that they can bring in 10000 cars that might NOT sell.
Do I have to go to every MB dealer I see and ask, “Does MB make this in a wagon version?” Just to push the data (assuming someone tracks such questions).
And, sure, we can come with reasons for them. “no market.” Counter: “I want one. So there is a market. Just a very small market.”
I want wagons too, but not enough North Americans do, it would seem – they’d rather buy SUVs. Sadly, this is what drove me to an Audi SQ6 when I would have loved an A6 avant e-tron. Not that I don’t love the SQ6, but it’s bigger than what I would have preferred.
What even is a station wagon any more? The EPA lists about a dozen models, but the Acura ADX, KIA Soul, and Nissan Kicks seem not to be station wagons to me. Take away the Germans and Volvo, and the only other wagon on their list is the Cadillac Celestiq.
My guess is that the wagons need to be federalized independent of the sedans. If M-B doesn’t expect to sell enough to warrant the crash-testing and whatever else is needed, then they won’t import them.
Meaning ??
Does that mean that the fed agencies consider it a completely different car and has to be tested for all kinds of crap a second time?
If so, that sucks.
We need an aftermarket to convert the sedan into a wagon. Would that work?
Yes.
There is an importer in Colorado that brings in Aussie Holdens (e.g., Maloos, Comodores, etc) without engines(?) or something like that such that the they officially finish the vehicle and get it titled in Co. as a kit car. In theory, that would work with the M-B wagons, but may present a problem getting the car insured as a kit car.
If only there were a worldwide standard (outside of US/CA) for this kind of thing that would help streamline standards.