All-New Mercedes CLA Shooting Brake Blends Practicality With Sensual Purity

Mercedes has lifted the veils off their all-new CLA Shooting Brake at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show, adding a touch of practicality to the four-door Coupe model’s expressive styling.

The new car is more grown up compared to its predecessor, measuring an extra 48 mm (1.88 inches) in length, an additional 53 mm (2.08 inches) in width and 2 fewer mm (0.07 inches) in height, while the wheelbase has grown by 30 mm (1.18 inches).

No real surprises

The exterior aspect of the all-new CLA Shooting Brake doesn’t come as a shock. We knew what to expect ever since we saw our first spy images and began applying those visual cues to the already-unveiled CLA Coupe.

The Shooting Brake features the same “sharknose” frond end design, with an elongated hood and striking powerdomes. Since the car utilizes Mercedes’ Sensual Purity design language, there’s a considerably less pronounced shoulder line, while the entire body features soft sculptural curvatures. Of course, the main addition, compared to the regular CLA, is the trunk, which has an 871 mm (34.2 inches) opening and a volume of 505 liters (17.8 cu.ft) – the old model’s trunk had a 635 mm (25 inches) opening and a 495 liters (17.4 cu.ft) in volume.

The interior of the CLA Shooting Brake is identical to that of the Coupe in terms of architecture and available on-board technology. You have your widescreen display, three air vents with a sporty turbine look, ambient lighting and so on. Then there’s the MBUX system, which has become ever smarter since its last iteration.

“The voice assistant no longer gets confused by other passengers talking, rather it only answers the command of the person who last activated the system with ‘Hey Mercedes’,” said Digital Vehicle & Mobility exec, Sajjad Khan.

Agile yet comfortable

Mercedes says that the CLA Shooting Brake, together with its Coupe sibling, have the sportiest driving characteristics out of all their new compact models. The wheel suspensions are designed for ride comfort and running in silence with acoustic control arms that decouple vibrations at the rear and hydromounts at the front. Meanwhile, a large stabilizer bar reduces the roll angle and the Adaptive Damping System allows the driver to switch between driving modes.

Then there’s aerodynamics, where despite its wider track, the cd value of the CLA Shooting Brake is as low as 0.26, although it’s more than the Coupe’s (0.23).

As for active safety, the CLA Shooting Brake has borrowed heavily from the S-Class, where it can now look up to 500 meters (0.3 miles) ahead and even drive partially autonomously in certain situations. It features Active Distance Assist, Active Steer Assist, Active Lane Change Assist, Active Park Assist and more.

Powering this stylish little Benz will be a wide range of diesel and petrol units, with either a manual or dual-clutch transmission options – to go with front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive setups. The flagship spec will be the CLA 250 Shooting Brake, spurred on by a 225 PS (222 HP) four-cylinder petrol unit, mated to a 7G-DCT gearbox.

Mercedes will launch the CLA Shooting Brake in markets around the world in September.