Wagons are increasingly popular in Singapore. For Audi and BMW, the wagon variants of their cars are badged as Avant and Touring respectively. At Mercedes-Benz, they're more fancily known as Estates or Shooting Brakes.

The car pictured here is the Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class Shooting Brake CLA250 Sport, and it's just gone through a bit of an update, just like its Coupe sibling. It's also a more powerful version of the Mercedes Benz CLA-Class Shooting Brake CLA200, which we drove in 2015.

Sharper, nicer

On the outside, the car gets new bumpers and LED high-performance headlamps, which create a fiercer, sportier face. In Sport trim, you get AMG bodystyling with red inlays on the front and rear aprons. Compared to many wagons, the CLA Shooting Brake is easily the most sophisticated and elegant, save for the almost identical CLS.


More updates can be found on the inside, which include new seat covers and trims, and also chrome-plated controls. Sporty touches in the interior are provided by the sports seats with contrasting topstitching and designo seat belts, both of which are red in colour.

The highlight of the centre console is a new, slender 8.0-inch 'floating' media display.

And there's now an enhanced Smartphone Integration system, which permits integration and voice-operated control of iPhones via CarPlay. On the tech side of things, you also get an active braking function (an autonomous braking feature to reduce chances of rear-end crashes) and Dynamic Select as standard.


Enough of the boring design and tech mambo jumbo. How does the 250 perform?

We're glad you asked. Powering this stylish German wagon is a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbocharged engine making 215bhp and 350Nm of torque. This lets the car complete a 0-100km/h charge in just over six seconds, akin to the performance of a Volkswagen Golf GTI.

Power is relayed through Merc's 7G-DCT dual-clutch gearbox to a 4MATIC (Merc's version of 4Motion, xDrive, et cetera) drive system. While the 7G-DCT isn't much to complain about, it certainly isn't the best in the market - Audi's S-tronic is clearly faster and more decisive.


As capable and punchy the powertrain is, its engine note isn't the most inspiring either. Luckily though, in Sport mode, the pop and cackles of the exhaust system make up for the engine's fairly unpleasant drone.

But, what the car does best is deliver confidence-inspiring performance. Thanks to 4MATIC, you can push through corners in haste, while its sharp and weighted helm works its magic. Ride comfort is another of the car's pluses, despite having firm sport suspension and low-profile tyres.


You can also change the behavior of the car using the Dynamic Select feature but it's best to drive in Comfort mode for city usage and in Manual when roads clear up.

Should I get one?

If you've got an active family of five, the compact CLA-Class Shooting Brake CLA250 Sport wouldn't be the best (or most practical) option around. For $195,888 (as of 17^th January 2017) we'd go for the cheaper and more spacious Volkswagen Passat Variant 2.0 TSI DSG R-Line.

But if you don't have much to lug around, and devilish style and reasonably exciting performance is your cup of tea, the design and dynamics of this car should satisfy your cravings.