I'm not going to talk out about it being successful or not, but I will say that the shape does perhaps look a bit out of place shrunken this small, especially when you see the car in person – the new C-Class and S-Class both look more natural. It still has unusual lines to be observed, and in order to make deciphering their role/significance easier, Mercedes has uploaded a selection of videos full of insight from the design team that drew them up.
What they have managed to achieve masterfully is to make the car look posh and expensive, though the bigger wheels are mandatory in order for it to be fully realized. That says a lot about those for whom this is aimed, and what they feel is important in a new car (or don’t, rather).
By Andrei Nedelea
Helped from an expanded range of compact cars after the addition of the CLA sports saloon, which unlike the A-Class hatch, is offered worldwide including the all-important North American market, the company's Mercedes-Benz passenger vehicle division saw its sales grow by 14 percent to 395,400 units in Q3 2013. Third-quarter revenue for the auto brand grew by 8 percent to €16.5 billion.
"The development of earnings primarily reflects the ongoing growth in unit sales, especially in China, the United States and Western Europe. A major contribution came from the expanded range of compact cars," said Mercedes in a statement.
The German company said that aside from its compact range that includes the A-Class hatch, B-Class MPV and CLA sedan, the revised E-Class coupes and convertibles also provided added sales impetus since June, with Mercedes anticipating "significant growth" in the luxury segment for the next quarter, primarily due to the launch of the new S-Class in major markets such as China and the United States.
But regardless, at least the stability control test is not only relevant for testing the ESC, but also for seeing if a vehicle’s chassis is up to scratch – the Opel Adam from the previous batch of cars showed it had a big tendency to understeer. Here, out of all four cars tested, the Suzuki seemed to have the straightest trajectory, and it runs a bit wide with the electronics turned off…
No other notable occurrences to report on, aside from the fact that for the Peugeot 2008, much of the crash data was taken from the 208 supermini on which it’s based – it shares its basic structure. It even suffers from the same high chance of giving passengers whiplash injuries in rear impacts, as the seats and headrests are not as efficient at culling this as they could be.
Check out the all six videos posted below; there are two for each car, bar the Peugeot, which doesn’t get any.
By Andrei Nedelea
Speaking to reporters from Autonews, the unnamed Mercedes insiders said that the CLA wagon would be similar, if not identical, in style to the larger CLS Shooting Brake sharing the same curvy roofline, name and increased headroom and luggage space over its sedan counterpart.
The sources did not say whether the CLA Shooting Brake model will be offered in the States, where demand for station wagon models is much lower than in Europe.
It was also mentioned that both a rumored convertible and a lower, roadster edition of the CLA have been put "off the table", at least for this generation of the model, but they might be added in the next iteration of the series at the end of the decade.
Note: Opening image is a photoshop of the CLA Shooting Brake
Performance offerings for the CLA 250 include two stages of tune, the first of which tweaks the ECU to bump output to 242hp (245PS) and 390Nm (288 lb-ft) for €940 ($1,270), with the second one adding a different ECU, a sports exhausts and air filter system to push power to 261hp (265PS) and 420Nm (310 lb-ft), for a much heftier €4,950 ($6,680).
With the 261hp package, the CLA accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h (62mph) in 5.9 seconds and tops out at 250km/h (155mph).
If you want more from Vath, there's a lowered sports suspension for €3,546 ($4,780), 20-inch alloy wheels in tires size 225/30 at the front and 265/25 at the back, a carbon front spoiler, rear spoilers, and several interior upgrades such as the sports steering wheel, and modified instrument panel gauges.
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