Every car on the planet goes through a periodic cycle of updates, its called ‘aggressive expansion’ and its designed to give new life into perhaps an ageing line up or to remind people what they may have forgotten about what it is they forgot about. Either way its really about extending the obsolescence of a product, increasing sales just that little bit extra, like trying to squeeze that last drop of juice from an orange. Thats what Mercedes have effectively done, but replace the word ‘squeeze’ with pimped and that’s what you have with the so called ‘new’ CLS. In reality the changes amount to little more than a re-designed front bumper, headlights and grille, details that carry across current design themes and trends from other models. The biggest news for the CLS are the headlights, both the CLS and CLS Shooting Brake now come with full LED headlights as standard. WOW! Active Multibeam LED headlamps are an optional extra, this technology uses 24 individually-controlled LEDs to automatically adjust the lighting pattern, in other words its computer controlled anti-dazzle lights, the CPU does the work so you don’t have to. A new 9 gear automatic transmission debuts, the CLS now gets the tried and trusted CLS 220 BlueTEC four-cylinder diesel engine as a kind of entry level starter, however the engine range is wide and strong with the dessert being the 585bhp AMG 5.5-litre V8 biturbo engine. Pricing details for the UK are tabled below:

 CLS Coupe

Model	Transmission	Power (hp)	Torque (Nm)	Economy (MPG)	CO2 (g/km)	Price (RRP OTR)
CLS 220 BlueTEC, diesel – 2,143 cc, four-cylinder	7G-Tronic Plus	177	400	56.5	129	£46,500
CLS 350 BlueTEC, diesel – 2,987 cc, six-cylinder	9G-Tronic Plus	258	620	52.3	142	£49,950
CLS 400, petrol, 3,498 cc, six-cylinder	7G-Tronic Plus	333	480	38.7	170	£55,850
CLS 63 AMG S, petrol, 5,461 cc, eight-cylinder	AMG MCT 7-speed	585	800	28.5	231	£86,500

CLS Shooting Brake: 

Model	Transmission	Power (hp)	Torque (Nm)	Economy (MPG)	CO2 (g/km)	Price (RRP OTR)
CLS 220 BlueTEC, diesel – 2,143 cc, four-cylinder	7G-Tronic Plus	177	400	56.5	132	£48,080
CLS 350 BlueTEC, diesel – 2,987 cc, six-cylinder	9G-Tronic Plus	258	620	49.6	149	£51,400
CLS 63 AMG S, petrol, 5,461 cc, eight-cylinder	AMG MCT 7-speed	585	800	28.0	235	£87,000

 

---