Mercedes-Benz CLA review

Now here’s where it gets interesting. The CLA can come with an MBUX Superscreen that consists of an entire dash of screens: a 10.25-inch driver’s display, a 14-inch central touchscreen and another 14-inch passenger screen from which passengers can dull their frontal cortex with YouTube shorts.

Except the passenger screen is optional, and if you don’t pay, you just get a big slab of black plastic speckled with star emblems. It’s not the most aesthetic of solutions. Plus, it’s a LOT of screens.

But before you decry the haptic-awfulness of touchscreen dominance, there’s another way to communicate with the CLA that works better than most; you just talk to it. Merc’s new Virtual Assistant is infused with artificial intelligence from Microsoft and Google, can sense your mood (and act accordingly) and even has a short-term memory.

What that means is that you can ask/tell the system pretty complicated things and it (generally) works them out. So you can adjust the relevant parts of the car (air-con, radio, sat-nav, phone etc), but also ask it to find you a Thai restaurant that serves a particular dish, or a pub that serves Sunday roast that also allows dogs.

It’ll learn, accrete habits, do all the usual, even deliver over-the-air updates for complex systems that should keep the CLA relevant in terms of future-proofing. Very clever, if that’s your bag, though it has so many possible functions it’d take a while to get used to and make the most of it. Sometimes you just want to drive somewhere.

What about the actual interior?

The rest of the interior is well-made and spacious, with some nice materials. Big, floating centre console with cupholders and wireless charging pad, plenty of storage and visual interest.

You can have a newly developed seat upholstery with a technical-looking pearl effect in black or white, and there are trims that come in open-pore wood, brushed aluminium, an anodised look and a decorative paper surface that’s a bit like laminate of natural bamboo. It’s better than it sounds.

Space is good, the boot is decent at 405 litres and it’s all very Merc-solid. Basically, no huge surprises.