Spend any time in the Mercedes-Benz CLS and you uickly forget there is a considerable length behind you, while it feels incredibly nimble and poised, writes PADDY COMYN
THE RECESSION was over in Co Kildare last month, if only briefly. It was a Sunday afternoon, the sun was out, and at a major retail outlet there was a far from orderly queue to get in.
Security officers, usually asked to do little else but read the paper and wave occasionally were having to function way beyond their job description and direct traffic as Range Rovers, BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes came out of hiding for a sun-laden orgy of consumerism.
It was the end of shopping Lent; the gorging on chocolate on Easter Sunday, as Vitamin C-starved shopaholics emerged from the shadows to blow the cobwebs off their credit cards and shopping claws. And there we were in the middle of it, in a brand new, almost 90,000 Mercedes-Benz CLS, like a proud and ebullient retail activist. The registrations in the car park might have been 06, 07, 08, memories of the indulgent past, but if the frantic pulling and dragging of items in shops like Ralph Lauren and Karen Millen were anything to go by, there are buyers waiting in the wings for the end of the social embargo on owning a new car.
The CLS doesn’t quite cause the stir it once did. Launched in 2005, it was a dramatic departure from what executive buyers had come to expect. Here was Mercedes-Benz unleashing a new class of car, a four-door coupé. It didn’t have much headroom in the back, it was more a four-seater than a five-seater, but it was achingly beautiful.
Yes, it might have cost much more than the equivalent E-Class, but it looked like a concept car that got the green light after a heavy night on the schnapps. It looked expensive, felt expensive and drove incredibly well. Despite its large size, it handled well and if you really wanted to go nuts, they would even sell you an AMG version. And despite some critics thinking it was a cynical marketing exercise, buyers loved it.
The appetite at the time for such a car was huge, especially in Ireland, and initially Mercedes-Benz had to work hard to meet demand. Four years after it was first launched, Mercedes-Benz has given the CLS a refresh. It has a new grille, with two louvres (spokes in front of the grille) instead of four, and new diamond-shaped mesh-covered air intakes painted in grey.
The CLS is still a hugely impressive car to see. Despite being four years old it still turns heads. It doesn’t have the huge impact it once had, not helped by its fairly blatant reproduction by Volkswagen as the Passat CC, a car half its price, but arguably better-looking.
Our test car, the CLS 320 CDi, is now the engine of choice too, replacing the petrol 350 as the favoured model. While the exterior colour of our car was sober, the interior was not so discreet. The choice of a violent biscuit colour for the interior looked dated, despite its immense comfort. The cabin, provided of course you choose a colour you can live with, is really very good. The seats, layout of controls and placement of creature comforts are all where they should be, and it took seconds to get comfortable with the CLS. That’s one thing Mercedes-Benz always do well. Their customers tend not to like to have to adapt to their cars too much, and you really don’t need to. Everything is intuitive, and you could well be getting into any model within the range.
But of course, this model is aimed at giving buyers the best of many worlds. It is meant to be more sporty and aggressive than the E-Class, and it needs to be a coupé without the compromises of just two doors. And it succeeds at this. The rear seats are pretty spacious, and criticising it for slightly restricted rear headroom is silly really. You probably won’t buy a CLS as a limo, or to transport your six-foot children around. You just can’t saddle yourself with a two-door car but want something that looks the part, and the CLS does just that.
Spend any time in the car and you quickly forget that there is quite considerable length behind you. It feels incredibly taut, nimble and poised. Slide it into D in the automatic transmission and it can drive in fat-cat lazy mode all day long in traffic, and most of the time this is what the CLS will do, but shake off the confines of city traffic and change gears yourself and this car wakes up to a degree that you wouldn’t expect.
The CLS uses a seven-speed automatic transmission which is very responsive, and has a manual mode that allows drivers to sequentially shift between gears. There is a sport mode for the transmission, which gives sharper throttle response.
The 320 CDi engine is really very good. The 3.0-litre V6 diesel unit has 224bhp, but more telling is the 540Nm of torque, which makes this car feel really urgent. Its performance has been overshadowed by the new diesel from Jaguar which features in the XF, but it does feel incredibly smooth and urgent.
There is no huge bolt of power, but a stream of torque, and that is what makes this car so deceptively fast and what makes any more powerful engine than this in the CLS a pure indulgence rather than a necessity.
Point this car at a country road and the steering is as fluid and the response as sharp as anything Mercedes-Benz has this side of something with an AMG badge on the back. Plus, pull up outside a posh hotel (yes, it is sad, but this writer does this in expensive cars) and the sometimes-snooty doorman jogs to the car that little bit faster.
So to this effect it has the dual personality that buyers of this car will covet. There’s a raft of safety equipment including dual-stage airbags for driver and passenger, side and window airbags and seatbelt force limiters, and active safety features include ESP stability control and emergency braking that detects a sudden switch from throttle to brake pedal and increases braking pressure automatically to help with a panic stop.
The CLS has many more rivals than it did when it first appeared in 2005, and there will be more. The Jaguar XF is a magnificent car with a better diesel engine, and even in full spec you will be saving a considerable amount of money compared to the CLS.
If you want to save even more,you could opt for the Volkswagen Passat CC. While it might not have the prestige badge, Volkswagen in Ireland has more kudos than other so-called mainstream brands. Audi will later offer an A7, based on the A6 platform and likely to feature a lightweight aluminium platform.
For anyone in a CLS and considering staying faithful, then the revised model won’t disappoint. Whether buyers will lift their head above the parapet in 2010 remains to be seen.
Factfile
Engine: a V6 224bhp 2,987cc diesel engine putting out 224bhp @ 3,800rpm and 540 nm @ 1,600rpm
Specification: standard features include front and rear fog lights, 17” alloy wheels in eight-spoke design, connection in glove compartment for audio and video, front armrest, rear armrest with compartment and cup holder, automatic climate control, cruise control with variable speed limiter, audio 20-CD radio with phone keypad; options include metallic paint from €2,125, Alcantara roof liner €3,600, leather upholstery from €3,454, Keyless-Go €2,464, TV tuner €2,393, chestnut wood €581, bi-xenon headlamps €3,370
L/100km (mpg): urban 10.6 1 (.4); extra-urban 5.9 (74.3); combined 7.6 (64.2)
CO2 emissions: 200g/km
Tax: VRT 32 per cent; motor tax €1,050
Price: €84,850