2014 MERCEDES-BENZ CLA45 BABY ROCKETSHIP!

four-banger sedan.

Trust me, a cork a New Year’s Eve bottle of bubbly have anywhere near the of a Mercedes CLA45 AMG exploding from standstill. It’s a small package with a fizz !

Holy crap, thing is rapid. As in zero-to-60 mph in 4.2 seconds, according to Motor ’s stopwatch clickers. That’s That’s clown-out-of-a-circus-canon quick! To put in some kind of perspective, it the CLA45 more rapid a Porsche Cayman S; quicker a 550-horse supercharged Jaguar faster than Merc’s own 451-horsepower C63 AMG thunderbolt .

So why is this CLA45 so special? beneath the curvy hood a teeny-weeny 2.0-liter four-cylinder. a four-banger. But because it’s crafted by those performance-meisters at AMG division, it’s a four-banger cranks out a quite insane 355 Drum roll please; is quite simply the highest-output engine to ever propel a car. It’s also the Four developed by AMG.

In you’ve been wasting in Margaritaville for the past year, the CLA is brand new entry model; a Civic-sized four-door with a Honda-like $30-grand starting Of course that’s for the base with front-wheel drive and a Turbo-Four. Its mission is to lure buyers on to the first rung of the M-B and hopefully keep them in the for life. But to add a little sizzle to the image, and to avoid it being a low-cost bottom-feeder, Mercedes it off to AMG. The result: a $48,500 and furious, four-wheel-drive thrill-ride.

See it in the metal and it looks like a version of Mercedes’ gorgeous CLS coupe. Same swoopy line. Same stubby Same pinched snout with drop-…-gorgeous headlamps. And the includes a razor-edged carbon-composite aero splitter, stealth-black alloys covering massive AMG stoppers, and a quartet of exhausts from a huge carbon diffuser. As for those rear LED they’re nothing less pure automotive art.

In addition to that potent motor, the CLA45 features a developed seven-speed dual-clutch automatic that delivers 355 horses to all four wheels. the drive system normally like a front-drive setup, on the power or start carving and all 258 pound-feet of torque can be split between the front and rear

So how does it drive? One word: Hard on the throttle and play with the paddle shifters and the is all head-snapping thrust accompanied by the of exhaust notes this of chainsaw on nitro. Mid-range for passing or freeway merging, is and more like a V8 in the way it pins you into the seat.

But it’s not all In less pedal-to-the-metal driving, the car sluggish off the line before the spools up. The dual-clutch auto can feel clunky and crude light throttle changes. And the suspension delivers a ride will chatter your

For me, however, the biggest question hanging over the CLA45 is its Start checking a few of the options and you can easily end up with a $60k tag — our test car topped out at For the same money you could close to buying a full-on 6.3 Merc C63 AMG. Or a 556-horsepower CTS-V.

Maybe selling boatloads of isn’t a priority for Mercedes. having it in the showroom alongside the CLA250 is more likely to be the reason for its existence.

www.mbusa.com/mercedes/index

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