SLEEK NEW CLA TO PACK OVER 400HP

Next-gen models will get AMG-fettled flagships and help swell Mercedes-Benz’s compact-car lineup to eight models

Mercedes-Benz has confirmed for the first time that it will launch successors to the CLA and CLA Shooting Brake, as well as an eighth compact model, the GLB SUV, in 2019.

The new models were detailed within an official so-called product roadmap graphic, as seen in the accompanying picture. It appeared in a presentation announcing the marque’s 2018 sales to the end of September and it pinpoints six to-be-revealed Mercedes passenger car models. Joining the CLA, CLA Shooting Brake

and the GLB will be facelifted versions of the GLC and GLC Coupe, as well as the thirdgeneration GLS, itself due to appear at this week’s Los Angeles motor show.

The exact timing of the CLA and CLA Shooting Brake unveiling is yet to be revealed. However, it’s understood the CLA is likely to make an appearance at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January and the CLA Shooting Brake is expected to take pride of place on Merccedes’ stand at the Geneva motor show in March.

Details of the four-door CLA, which is planned to be produced at Mercedes’ factory in Hungary, remain scarce. But prototype test cars reveal that it has a distinctly

more sporting appearance than the recently unveiled A-Class Saloon. The pair will sit below the C-Class in Mercedes’ growing saloon range.

The CLA will feature a more tapered look to its front end, a more heavily angled windscreen, greater curvature to its roofline, a shallower glasshouse with frameless door windows and a shapelier rear end. The new look is a further evolution of Mercedes’ so-called ‘sensual purity’ design lineage, with smoother and fuller forms set to replace the taut surfacing treatment and heavily etched swage lines of the first-generation CLA. The design-led focus is what will distinguish the CLA from the A-Class saloon, similar to how the larger CLS sits alongside the E-Class.

At this stage, it is not known if the new model will manage to match the outstanding aerodynamic efficiency of the firstgeneration CLA, which remains the most aerodynamically efficient car to have been placed into larger-scale production, with a drag co-efficient of just 0.22 in CLA180 BlueEfficiency guise.

If the test prototypes are any guide, the 2019-model-year CLA will be quite a bit larger than its predecessor, with a longer wheelbase that’s set to provide more length to the rear door apertures to ease entry to the rear along with improved rear leg room.

The interior will share a great deal with the latest A-Class. It will have a nearidentical dashboard design and Mercedes’ latest MBUX interface, with two screens mounted on the dashboard top to display driving information, media and navigation functions.

Recently seen prototypes also point the way to the look of the second-generation CLA Shooting Brake. Like its predecessor, it is expected to receive a heavily stylised appearance, with a sloping roofline and heavily angled tailgate set to prioritise styling ahead of ultimate load-carrying capacity.

The new CLA and CLA Shooting Brake will be the fifth and sixth models to use Mercedes’ MFA2 platform, following on from the five-door A-Class, A-Class Sedan, long-wheelbase A-Class Sedan and recently unveiled B-Class. The MFA2 platform supports front- and four-wheel drive and can accommodate either a torsion beam or multi-link rear suspension.

The CLA and CLA Shooting Brake form part of a future eight-model compact car lineup that will also include Mercedes’ new rival to the BMW X1 and Audi Q3, the GLB SUV, which, the roadmap hints, will be unveiled during the second half of 2019, as well as a successor to the GLA, set to be launched in 2020.

Power for the new CLA pair will come from a range of four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, including a powered-up version of Mercedes’ latest M260 petrol unit in new four-wheel-drive CLA35 4Matic and CLA35 4Matic Shooting Brake models from AMG.

A more highly tuned version of the M260 engine with some 410hp will be used for range-topping CLA45 and CLA45 Shooting

Brake models, according to MercedesAMG officials. Those variants will, like the upcoming A45, use an eight-speed dualclutch gearbox and a newly developed allwheel drive system that features an electronically controlled ‘drift mode’.

Other new Mercedes models confirmed for sale in 2019 include the fourth-generation GLE, the third-generation B-Class and the first model from Mercedes’ EQ electric car division, the EQC — all of which have already been revealed.