Tag: CLA

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Cars

Mercedes-Benz CLA vs. A-Class Sedan

A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity of seeing the Mercedes-Benz A-Class Saloon, in person, on the King’s Road, Chelsea. I thought it was a CLA, and that someone had decided to remove the CL from the vehicle’s badge. Apparently, I was wrong! I should have read the Daimler AG’s press release more carefully, as the A-Class Saloon is an entirely different car than the CLA model.

I personally consider the CLA to be the most obsolete car on this planet, in fact, in our solar system! It looks like someone put the CLS into a dryer which resulted in the obscure looking CLA. The CLA is, however, a cash maker in emerging markets, where the taxation is burdensome on cars. Even taking this into account, it does not justify the awkward aesthetic of the CLA.

I have always considered the CLA to be the ‘Saloon’ version of the A-Class, with a similar frontage, the same interior but with a larger boot. Daimler AG headquarters had a different idea, launching the A-Class Saloon, based on expensive consultants, Excel spreadsheets, and very long reports to justify the advantages and differences over the CLA.

I have been interested in cars since I was a child, and I can even spot the model of a car at night. I could not, however, decipher the difference in design between the CLA and the A-Class Saloon. True, the A-Class Saloon has a higher roofline at the C-column, along with a few other variances, including the suspension which is probably a bit softer in the A-Class Saloon. Yet no glaringly obvious difference would entice someone to choose anything other than the cheapest.

The CLA is positioned as a sportier version, but the differences are so slight I doubt that someone would visit a dealer and measure the rooflines to then decide.

The CLA and A-Class Saloon will inevitably saturate each-others’ market share.

A similar situation occurred with the BMW brand. Take the BMW 3-Series Gran Tour and BMW 4-Series Gran Coupe; they look the same. I raised this issue on my blog and received an abundance of emails in response as so many people were bewildered about the difference or lack of difference between the two models. The only notable criterion was pricing, and this soon wore thin with the consumers, and consequently, the 3-Series Gran Tour was abandoned!

Inevitably this may also be the fate of the A-Class Saloon and the CLA. Someone accidently pitched the idea to Daimler AG, and it went into production.

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Cars

Mercedes CLA Features a Cat on Their Advertisement

Mercedes CLA features a cat on their advertisement. CLA is not the most appealing car from the Mercedes, however they know the rules of the social media and becoming viral. Cats and Kate Upton! Last year they worked with Kate Upton during the Super Bowl and this year Mercedes works with a cat to promote the aerodynamic efficiency of the Mercedes CLA!

Mercedes CLA 180 BlueEFFICIENCY Edition achieves Cd value of 0.22, which is quite good. And CLA 180 BlueEFFICIENCY is powered by a 1.6-lt petrol engine with 123 HP and 200 Nm of torque. Only needs 9.9 seconds with 6-speed manual gearbox. The top speed is 190 km/h.

 
Photos Credits
Mercede
Categories
Cars

Mercedes CLA 200 Test Drive by Anastasia Tregubova

Test drive of Mercedes CLA 200 by Anastasia Tregubova. Personally, I never liked the Mercedes CLA, I couldn’t find a single angle on the CLA to fall in love with. Whenever I see the CLA on the road, it reminds me one thing! CLA is created to fill a gap on the market. There is CLS and smaller one CLA. It is the basic rule of the game, everyone does it.

However, then Anastasia Tregubova tests the CLA 200, I watched the whole footage. And I think 18.309 people share the same thoughts with me. The interesting fact, the whole test drive is in Russia and I am sure that half of those viewers have no idea about Russian. We only watch it :)

And please Anastasia, speak in English for us :)

Technical details, Mercedes CLA 200 is powered by a 1.6-lt turbo petrol engine with 156 HP and 250 Nm of torque. CLA 200 is coupled with 6-speed manual for 7-speed double clutch automatic, go for the automatic. And only needs 8.6 seconds to reach 100 km/h with the top speed of 230 km/h.

 
Photos Credits
Mercedes
Categories
Cars

Mercedes CLA from Istanbul for #PinItForwardUK

Mercedes CLA, the tiny CLS! I know this does not sound fair but CLA is the smaller size version of the legendary CLS. Despite this resemblance, CLA did manage to create its own group of fans!

CLA is based on the new Mercedes A-Class, they share the same platform. Therefore, CLA is a front-wheel drive car. Unlike the CLS, you will experience relatively more under steer than you expected in a Mercedes. My personal opinion with front-wheel drive is not associated with sympathetic thoughts. But we cannot forget the manufacturing cost of rear-wheel drive and its hunger for fuel for smaller size engines. When you add these items into equation  front-wheel drive is a plausible solution, which I really don’t appreciate that much.

Never mind, you won’t be disappointed with the CLA. It does look way different than the A-Class, there is no true competitor of CLA and you will be quite unique. And CLA is relatively lowered priced than the CLS!

Here some photos from Mercedes-Benz Turkey, during the Istanbul Fashion Show! This post is for #PinItForwardUK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Photo Credits
Mercedes-Benz Turkey
Categories
Fashion

Kate Upton Washing a Mercedes CLA in Slow Motion

Kate Upton is the American bikini model and I am sure you saw her photos previously on many places. Recently, Mercedes decided to have a car wash from Kate Upton for the new “very nice looking” CLA. CLA is basically, a four-door sedan version of A-Class.

Pictures’ Copyrights
Mercedes and Sports Illustrated
Categories
Cars

Goodwood Festival of Speed: Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes SL 63 AMG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mercedes 300SL

 

 

 

 

New Mercedes A-Class / Yeni Mercedes A-Serisi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mercedes C63 Coupe Black AMG

 

 

Mercedes E63 AMG

 

 

Mercedes Formula 1 Car / Mercedes Formula 1 Aracı

 

Gold Mercedes G-Wagon / Altın Kaplama Mercedes G-Serisi

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mercedes ML63 AMG

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mercedes Concept Style Coupe CLA

 

Mercedes CLS 63 AMG

 

Mercedes SLS AMG

 

Categories
Cars

Mercedes Concept Style CLA / CLC with Cloud Technology

Mercedes Concept Style will be revealed at Beijing Motor Show next week. But Mercedes revealed the photos early!

Mercedes calls it Concept Style or we can call it CLA not CLC. Because, CLC was used for the previous C Class coupe and it was a failure. From the marketing perspective, using the CLC for a new and ambitious car will not be a good decision. The CLC already associated with particular notions that constructed CLC’s brand image and it is not that good! Instead of refurbishing an image of a car, it is better to use a brand new one, CLA!

Mercedes-Benz suggests that, this new car will be a benchmark for avantgarde design in the executive segment. This is really a bold statement! However, the existing design promises a real different car for the market, I hope they will stick with it for the production. Also, there will be design cues from the new A-Class. Panoramic roof, no B-Pillar, frameless side windows, diamond-look grille.

Interior will feature a very nice function, the air vents in instrument panel will change its colour according to adjusted temperature from blue to red. It would be quite useful to understand the temperature.

Concept Style will be powered by a four-cylinder turbo petrol engine with 211 PS coupled with 4MATIC all-wheel drive system and 7G-DCT dual clutch auto gearbox (Gear shifts will be very quick). So, this will provide a really good acceleration and destroying the over steering fun in corners!

The most important feature with Concept Style is the engagement of Cloud technology to COMAND system. The application on COMAND system will be stored Daimler Vehicle Backend servers, unlike your mobile phone, the applications will not stored at the COMAND system. When you wish to run, they will be recalled from the Daimler’s servers, which might be a pain if you don’t have a fast connection. Also, many customers will be complaining for this in future. Existing 3G technology, time-to-time suffers from peak hours and whist on move, it is quite hard to sustain the same signal level at very place. This is one of the biggest problems of internet connection when you are mobile. And relying a new mobile application experience on cloud technology is a big risk. Most probably, Mercedes will develop an update to store applications on COMAND system. They might be using the 4G technology, but there are still dilemma going around for this technology. We need to wait at least half a decade to use it properly.

In general, this car looks amazing and will create a new path in automotive. Also, it doesn’t look that boring like other Mercedes vehicles!

Pictures’ and Video’s Copyrights
Mercedes