Attention, “young customers who lead an active life with various leisure activities.” Sound like you? Then Mercedes-AMG wants your attention. This is, apparently, a car tailor-made for your “individualist” lifestyle.
It’s the Mercedes-AMG CLA 35 4Matic Shooting Brake, and it couldn’t be more wantonly hipster if it had a beard and a copper tobacco pipe. What it has instead is four-wheel drive, the 300hp 2.0-liter turbo engine from the AMG A35 hot hatch, and a 505-liter boot. Nothing will get your fixie-bike home from the menders quicker.
Mercedes says the top-banana CLA wagon can go from 0-100kph in 4.9sec, which is bonkers, and top out at a limited 250kph, which is predictable. You can specify an optional aero package with extra front ‘flics’ and a roof spoiler, which AMG promises “increase the negative lift force and thus also the driving stability at the sporty limits.” We’re pretty sure that’s the brief for Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 aero wizards at the race team factory.
Inside, there isn’t just cargo space for days and schportier seats. There are modes beyond your wildest dreams. Three-stage stability control, five driving modes, from Slippery to Sport Plus, three settings for the suspension, and two modes for the chassis systems, which sets up the four-wheel drive, traction control, and steering to either be Basic (and behave) or Advanced (and let you mess about).
Brakes have been beefed up, the steering has a more direct and feisty ratio, and the exhaust is approximately 48% more antisocial and crackly. Even the digital instrument dials have had a racier facelift.
Prices are likely to punch a bit higher than the A35 hatch, because you’re getting a more practical (but hardly slower) machine—reckon on paying about £38,000 (around P2.5 million) for your turbocharged super-’nana.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
