Community Corner

Mercedes-Benz CLA 250: The Best-Looking Sedan-Coupe?

Mercedes-Benz gets me, a 30ish-year-old guy, into its dealerships with its new CLA 250.

Written by Mischa Arnosky

It’s rare when a car company launches a product that makes me say, “I’d like to be the first to own this.” Waiting lists, first-year glitches, potential dealer surcharges? Who cares. Sometimes when you want something, you just want it.

I’ve been having these feelings toward the relatively new Mercedes-Benz CLA 250, a car that’s been floating around in car magazines in various stages of “doneness” for a couple of years, but only recently dropped in late September. 

It's gorgeous.   

Mercedes is looking to attract me to its dealerships — a guy in his early 30s — in the hopes that when I grow tired of my CLA, I stay within the Benz family by buying an E-Class or something.

Mercedes-Benz of Fort Washington recently let me borrow a Cirrus White CLA 250 for a couple of hours. General Manager Marc Schramm said the swoopy CLA is doing its job of getting younger people into the dealership (that Super Bowl spot with Willem Dafoe probably didn’t hurt either). He added that older people, some looking for a smaller car, seem to dig the CLA as well. Buyers of the CLA are split 50-50 between men and women.

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“When the car launched in September, we thought, ‘This is what it must feel like to work in an Apple store when they launch a product,’” Schramm said. “There was a line of about 25 people ready to drive the car — we had to write people’s names down on a list.”

The car itself, which MB classifies as a “coupe,"  looks like a smaller CLS, but better, more tidy. It’s got an aggressive front end that mimics the SL roadster (especially with the $2,200 sport package) and the sculpted doors flow nicely to the tapered rear end and its LED tails. The look is appealing to younger guys … and for an extra $450 you can get the 3-pointed star on the grille to glow. (I’m not sure how many older people would check that option box.)

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Unlike the CLS though, the CLA is front-drive and powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-4. It makes 208 hp and 258 lb-feet of torque. Power is good, but the engine sounds a little coarse as the tach needle swings to the right … but this car isn’t about winning stop light drag races. Mercedes says the car can hustle to 60 in 6.9 seconds, which is probably conservative.

The only transmission available is a 7-speed dual clutch unit, which is very eager to upshift … which leaves you in no man’s land as far as gears go when lifting off the throttle to take a small corner. Leave the transmission in “sport mode” and shifts are more crisp, with less hunting. Also, don’t forget to disable “Eco” mode when you turn the car on … or else the engine falls asleep at every red light. Having the engine sneeze back to life every time you put your foot on the gas pedal to take off gets really annoying, really quickly.

But still, the car isn’t about all-out performance. It’s about style. The car I drove was equipped with brown leather and a brown MB-Tex dashboard as part of the $1,500 interior package. It also had a great Harman/Kardon stereo hooked up to a large display; the music and contacts on my phone integrated seamlessly into the unit.

Other nice touches include illuminated door cards and cup holders and burl walnut trim. The SL-theme continues on the inside with the large circular vents and the pipe organ gauge treatment.   

You never feel like you’re in a cheap Benz in the CLA. But then again, the car isn’t really cheap. It starts at a shade under $30K, but if you keep checking option and package boxes, it ramps up to $40K pretty quickly. My car also had the $2,300 premium package, which includes heated seats, dual-zone climate control and that awesome stereo. But it didn’t have the $1,500 panorama sunroof or the sport package, and the car had a sticker of about $37,000.

Thirty-seven large can buy a lot of things in the automotive world, but none of them is probably going to be as stylish, or turn as many heads as the CLA. I’ll take mine in black on black … and throw in the illuminated 3-pointed star.


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