CLS Act

At long last, the CLS lives up to its full potential, but is the progenitor of the four-door coupe too late to its own party?

- Daryl Lee

I really wanted to like the Mercedes-Benz CLS. I mean, I do like it. Far more than I liked its two predecessors, at any rate. But I can’t seem to shake the feeling that the CLS is late to the party. Ironically, it’s the party the CLS started in 2004. It’s the car that sparked the great four-door coupe gold rush of the mid-2000s.

I should explain: once the It bodystyle of the automotive world, four-door coupes have been losing their lustre and supplanted by crossovers – preferably electric – of every size and stripe.

Seen in isolation, the new, third-generation CLS is excellent. Fifteen years after it made that initial big splash, the CLS finally handles like it looks. That is to say, like a full-sized sports saloon and not like an E-Class wearing a slinky dress. The first-generation CLS, while it looked radically different from the E-Class it was based on, couldn’t hide its frumpy roots. Big and floppy, the first CLS scored big on comfort and refinement, but didn’t fare so well everywhere else. Its interior was a carbon copy of the E-Class, with the same geriatric four-spoke steering wheel and glossy walnut panelling. Even the fire-breathing AMG models were not spared that treatment.