LONG RANGE ELECTRIC SALOONS

The CLA is TopGear's newly crowned saloon champion. But a curiously styled Kia might have something to say about that

- WORDS STEPHEN DOBIE PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD

Pity the Mercedes-Benz CLA. Freshly crowned as TopGear’s Saloon of the Year, you might think we'd let it relax on a white sandy beach, chilled cocktail in hand. But no. There’s an immediate challenge for its title, and in the unlikely shape of a booted Korean hatchback whose hindquarters could have been penned by Picasso. A mere curiosity for the Merc to swat easily aside, or a contender so unlikely, the CLA is caught napping?

The inexorable rise of Hyundai and Kia, seemingly a steep diagonal line since the mid 2000s, could be a stark preview of where the Chinese car industry ends up. One day we were fawning over Kia Ceeds for their reasonable prices now it’s full bore adoration for the funky Inster, fabulous Ioniq 5N and a whole swathe of Kia EV models.

The EV4 is the most sensible one yet, at least in stock hatchback form. Confident styling clothes a car that eschews fuss to focus on being easy to live with. Unruffled refinement sits higher on its agenda than boisterous performance, which in truth is what you really want from an EV. One of the many strings to its bow is a peak range claim of 388 miles with its larger 81.4kWh battery option - or a lightly reduced 380 in this bonkers looking Fastback form.

The front is a slice of cool shared with the EV3 crossover; the rear could be the face of a species found deep in the Mariana Trench. But we admire design chutzpah - better this than blending helplessly into a swelling EV marketplace.