MERCEDES-BENZ CLA 200 SHOOTING BRAKE

Its curves are OK, but a few more days in the gym would have made it perfect

THERE was a time when estate cars were very much an afterthought for designers, little more than the saloon model with a fat derrière attached to offer extra space. If someone had told you they had given the job to a transition-year student just to stop him annoying everyone else, you would have believed it in a flash.

Then, suddenly, that all changed. When Hyundai launched the i40, the estate came first and it was a thing of considerable beauty, a game-changing moving sculpture; the saloon version, when it finally arrived, really couldn’t match it.

Other car makers have lavished attention on their estates now, too – I would argue that the new Ford Mondeo looks better as an estate than it does as a saloon, while the likes of the Mazda6 would make choosing between the two variants a difficult decision.

That, sadly, is not the case with the Mercedes CLA Shooting Brake, a compact estate that isn’t nearly as pretty as its coupé sibling. It starts well, with a sharply tapered bonnet and a chunky, almost Mustang, snub nose featuring the studded diamond grille, but as you look from front to back, the profile starts to seem deflated and sullen, with the rear end sitting glumly on haunches that don’t give it the uplift it deserves. There is more appeal on the side panels, with a lovely curve, the shape of a V lying on its side, hewn into the metal. It’s 90 per cent there; another couple of days in the gym and it would have been perfect.

The interior is familiar from other Mercs of recent vintage – the fixed infotainment screen on the dash, the gently sloping centre console with chunky buttons that are the very opposite of fiddly, and everything as neat and tidy as the annual accounts of a German bank. The car features the circular air vents with cruciform diffuser that we’ve also come to expect from the A Class, on which this is based, bringing a touch of classic aviation style to the cabin.

The driver and passenger seats are comfortable and, in the back, there’s 40 millimetres more headroom than in the coupé, in which the roof is obliged to fall away a little more sharply. At 495 litres, the boot capacity is not overly generous, though it does extend to 1,354 with the rear seats folded. Unfortunately, the wheel arches eat into the available width and the tailgate opening is reduced by the rear light cluster, so particularly wide loads would cause you a few problems.

There are other problems, too. The 2.1-litre diesel engine is much noisier in lower gears than it should be; it’s as grumpy as a justwoken teenager. On the motorway, engine noise calms down but the insulation could be better at keeping out noise. I found myself upping the radio volume quite a lot, when I would have expected something more refined.

This a front-wheel-drive car, and the steering is a bit flabby and uninvolving. The lowered sport suspension is relatively hard too, and unforgiving on Irish roads. It’s not an unpleasant drive, just a little functional, and it offers little in the way of excitement. Certainly, looking at it, you might expect a 0-100km/h sprint of a little less than the declared 9.5 seconds. M–test car came with €4,453 worth of extras metallic finish, light and sight pack, reversing camera, ambient lighting and a great panoramic sunroof. Standard equipment included audio streaming, Bluetooth and USB, ECO start/stop, collision prevention assistant (a light flashes when you get too close to the car in front), adaptive brake lights, pedestrian protection, air conditioning, 18-inch AMG alloys, the diamond grille, sport suspension and very comfortable sports seats.

Fuel economy is good. I drove close to 500km in five days and still had almost half a tank left (though, as we all know, the second half of a tank runs out faster than the first!). The claimed 4.1 litres per 100km doesn’t seem unrealistiic Annual motor tax of just € 190 isn't exactly going to hammer your wallet either.

That said, if I was buying a Merc, this wouldn’t be my first choice. Its elder sibling, the CLS Shooting Brake, is a much better, albeit much more expensive, estate, but if your budget is in the ballpark of the CLA, I’d be sticking with the A-Class itself.