The Merc-AMG CLA 35 Shooting Brake is a 155mph banana

Attention, “young customers who lead an active life with various leisure activities.” Sound like you? Then Mercedes-AMG wants your attention. This is, apparently, a car tailor-made for your “individualist” lifestyle.

It’s the Mercedes-AMG CLA 35 4Matic Shooting Brake, and it couldn’t be more wantonly hipster if it had a beard and a copper tobacco pipe. What it has instead is four-wheel drive, the 300bhp 2.0-litre turbo engine from the AMG A35 hot hatch, and a 505-litre boot. Nothing will get your fixie-bike home from the menders quicker.

Mercedes says the top-banana CLA wagon can go from 0-62mph in 4.9 seconds, which is bonkers, and top out at a limited 155mph, which is predictable. You can specify an optional aero package with extra front ‘flics’ and a roof spoiler, which AMG promises “increase the negative lift force and thus also the driving stability at the sporty limits.” We’re pretty sure that’s the brief for Lewis Hamilton’s F1 aero wizards at the race team factory.

Inside, there isn’t just boot space for days and schportier seats. There are modes beyond your wildest dreams. Three-stage stability control, five driving modes, from Slippery to Sport Plus, three settings for the suspension and two modes for the chassis systems, which sets up the four-wheel drive, traction control and steering to either be Basic (and behave) or Advanced (and let you mess about).

Brakes have been beefed up, the steering has a more direct and feisty ratio and the exhaust is approximately forty-eight per cent more anti-social and crackly. Even the digital instrument dials have had a racier facelift.

Prices are likely to punch a bit higher than the A35 hatch, because you’re getting a more practical (but hardly slower) machine – reckon on paying about £38,000 for your turbocharged super-‘nana.