The Baby's New Clothes

The smallest Mercedes-Benz sedan on sale gets a new dress, but the changes are almost invisible.

- Rohit Paradkar 

The Mercedes-Benz CLA is the centre of attraction at the German carmaker’s Indian operations. It is the most affordable sedan that you can buy with a three-pointed star on the grille. But it looks anything but entry level. With its stylish design, it has carved a niche for itself. Along with its hatchback siblings, the A-Class and the B-Class, the trio have brought in some serious numbers for MercedesBenz, making them the bright stars of the line-up. While the hatchbacks got their due makeovers recently, the CLA gets its new robe this month. But like the fabled emperor’s new clothes, the CLA’s ensemble changes are almost invisible.

Look closely though, and you will notice that the CLA gets a new set of headlights that have been restructured and now get LEDs as a standard fitment. The moth-wing tail lights too have a revised detailing that looks marginally better than the unit it replaces. The bumpers have been given a minor redesign too, but the larger exhaust tips and the new chrome touches around the splitters and winglets take it closer to the AMGstyling kit. So while the changes do seem pretty invisible, it is clear that MercedesBenz did not want to go overboard with making too many revisions to an already good-looking car. It is so good looking, in fact, that we at OVERDRIVE even conceived a photography contest around it, called Frame the Star. Despite having browsed through some of the best work from some of the best photographers, I believe that the imagery just doesn’t do justice to the CLA. It looks much better in the metal.