A Little Fun for a Lot of Cash | 2024 Mercedes-AMG CLA35 Drive Review (POV)

Hey crew, I've got the key which has not been updated like the rest of the Mercedes-AMG lineup to that 24 Mercedes-AMG CLA 35. We are going to take it for a drive but first let's check out how it looks on the inside and outside. The CLA range has been updated for 24 and on this AMG 35 edition we've got the Panamericana vertically slotted grille around the tri-star in the center and above that is an AMG specific badge. Down low is a functional front air dam but off to the side these are non-functional corner vents and around those there's some blacked out trim with the AMG Night Package. There is a functional air pass through there. Above we've got some updated projector LED headlights with LED DRLs and turn signals. This one is painted in mountain gray metallic and speaking of gray, bit of a gray day today, some of that sun now shining through you can see a little of that metallic flake sparkling out at us and the color does look good with the AMG Night Package. At the side is an optioned set of 19-inch AMG specific wheels and if you just focused on the brushed metal it would look like a traditional five-spoke but you look closer and you see the black accents that make it look like an aero-efficient wheel. Within those are upgraded AMG brakes clamping on drilled rotors and the tires are Bridgestone Potenza Sport Summers 245 section front and rear. The CLA profile retains that convex roof shape to match the now distinct CLS and as it's grown over the years it's looked more attractive and more like an upscale luxury vehicle. Sits nicely on those wheels as well and here at the back are some restyled LED taillights and turn signals. Above is a body color matched lip spoiler and down low is a new much more prominent diffuser in gloss black. I think the 24's CLA changes make it look more handsome and the 35 AMG specific stuff makes it seem more deserving of that AMG badge. My question for you is whether you agree with me. Does this look like a real AMG? Let me know in the comments and let's check out the interior. Opening up and looking inside at this optional classic red and black leather interior and the leather continues here on the door panel though around it and underneath it that's hard plastic. There is a standard Burmester sound system and you get one touch up down windows. Stepping in with that highly curved roof and the tight quarters I have to contort my body quite a bit. Behind my own seats at six feet tall I do get knee room that's good. This is all hard plastic though and this mesh map pocket will wear out quickly. I can slide my feet underneath the seats but the thigh support is lacking and the headroom is too. My head's pressed firmly uncomfortably against that roof. I can't make it back to that headrest. That means large adults are not going to fit in the back of the CLA. The people who do sit back here will get air vents. It's nice. No climate control and just one USB-C port. The driveshaft hump isn't too large but I'm not even going to attempt to sit in this middle seat. So I'll pull down the armrest and we do have cup holders and these expand really far. I got my large water bottle in there but the back of the CLA 35 is just going to be for smaller individuals. Now let's check out the front. Door close noise. There's a decent thud to it. A little bit of a rattle I think from the frameless windows. There's smart keyless entry for the rear and front doors. These front seats gain heating and a little extra bolstering. You have thigh extenders there. Power adjustments found here on the door along with three positions of memory for the driver's seat. The front doors look similar to the back. We have that brushed aluminum trim there. More of that leather and hard plastic still remain. This is the release for the trunk and it does pop all the way up like that. There is 11.6 cubic feet of space found behind the rear seats which fold 40-20-40. You can pull on these two levers to get them down. Underneath the floor, no spare tire but you do get an inflation kit and a little bit of storage. There is a handle to close the lid. Comes down nice and easy. A couple other quick mentionables before hopping in. Four one-touch windows and power adjusting plus power folding door mirrors. There's also a very large sunroof. They call it panoramic. I'm gonna call it just large. Hopping in now and closing that door. Well that was loud and with some rattles again. I'm gonna put the CLA into accessory mode here which bids me welcome with these cool animations on these displays for the controllers. And it is very cool that you get the big boy AMG wheel now here on the smallest of AMGs, the CLA. And it is perforated in nine and three. Feels great in the hands. It's got a flat bottom to it. And the left side controller, these things are reconfigurable for the performance options you want. Then the right hand side, that's for your drive mode selector. And the two stacks of capacitive touch controllers work great when your hands are perfectly drived. If they clam up at all and they stop responding quite as well. Beyond those we've got these large aluminum paddles that feel great in the hands. Nice travel to them. And beyond that we've got these two 10.25 inch displays. Your digital gauge cluster is reconfigurable. And then your infotainment system is nicely responsive and it's got wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. To the right of that display is more brushed aluminum and above is a strip of ambient lighting that shows up at night along with the colors for the turbine style air vents. These sit in a bed of gloss black that as you can see smudges and collects dust. But it doesn't bother me nearly as much as the gloss black around here because this is going to scratch up and look terrible over time. There is a grippy tray for maybe a wallet. You've got a volume dial and this button will bring up your camera system whenever you need to. These cup holders can expand out for smaller items. You've got a DC outlet there, USB-C port there, and a wireless charging pad with a wand that comes out to pin your phone down. That's very well thought out. I like that on the passenger side there's this perforated injection molding. It's rounded for a 3D effect. There's also injection molding with stitching upper part of the dashboard there. And then underneath the leatherette top console which is stitched as well. Got deep storage with two USB-C ports. Visibility looks good at the A-pillar, B-pillar with where the headrest matches up. Bit of a blind spot there. And then at the C-pillar also with those rear headrests is another blind spot. There is standard blind spot monitoring with rear cross traffic though. This cabin's definitely got style, it's got tech, and it's got some good conveniences. But it's also just under $63,000 as tested. It is going to be tight for some of your rear passengers. Now let's take the CLA-35 for a drive. All right, let's fire it up. And as I do, I'll hold in the paddle for what Mercedes-AMG calls the Emotion Start. Effectively a little extra fuel and air to get some overrun from the exhaust. Hello cabin crew, thanks for joining for this drive review in the 24 Mercedes-AMG CLA-35. I'll start by selecting the drive mode. Got comfort, individual, which I've calibrated to be a reduced throttle response. And then there's sport and sport plus. Begin in comfort as I lift up on the gear selector, bringing up a high resolution camera system. And there's also a wide-angle view. This is great for if you've got people parked next to you, you can see around them and not worry about cross traffic, although there is a cross traffic alert. And when I back up, I've got trajectory lines. So I'll scoot on out of here, pull down on the gear selector, and then I'm going to begin, as I usually do, with a turning radius test. And trying not to strike these gentlemen here, I will line up and then crank the wheel. I don't have a forward facing camera, but I do have trajectory lines there as well. And it's a terrifically tight turning circle, something I'd expect for a vehicle of this size, but it's still nice to see. Turn signal sound now. Oh, it's such a light tapping. I really enjoy that for its subtlety. And on the opposite side of subtlety, what about the world-famous horn test? Yeah, that is the opposite. That's a pretty pronounced horn sound. And a big horn sound isn't the only thing this little car has going for it. It's also got big power. From a two-liter single-turbo four-cylinder, it makes, the same as last year, 302 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. That still leaves a lot of breathing room above it for the CLA45S that makes 416 horsepower. That is routed now through an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic. Last model year had a seven-speed auto, and it's still routed to all four tires via a front-drive-based all-wheel drive system. And here in this comfort drive mode, because the boost is developed so early on, I do not feel any sort of single-turbo traditional latency in the power buildup. It's like I get up and moving very quickly. And even in the individual mode, if I click over to that, the throttle response, yes, it calms down a little bit, but this never feels like a sluggish little sports sedan. Go back to comfort here. And complementing the haste of the power delivery is a relative smoothness from this eight-speed automatic, in motion in particular. It's final few miles per hour as you're slowing or just kind of getting away from a light, you can discern that two-to-one gear change. But when you're in motion, that all just blends away, and you really won't care about the final miles per hour where you feel that gear shift. It's just a small rocking motion. It's only you'll notice that if you're coming out of a torque converter where you just never feel or experience those gear changes. And these seats are mostly good. I'll say this. I like the thigh support. That's great. Lots of adjustability, good lumbar control. I've got the tilt and telescope at the wheel as well, so I can find a good driving posture for myself. And I do have head clearance at six feet tall, though not a ton of it. My only issue with it is that the padding isn't the most supple. And also the bolsters are pretty narrow. So after a while, I'm kind of squirming in my seat, and I kind of want to get out and moving. For 24, the CLA35 gains a 48-volt mild hybrid system. And so that means that the stop-start system is very smooth. You barely notice that at all. And also, if you're sitting in a light for a while and your leg gets tired, you can press hard on that brake pedal, and it's got an auto hold for you. The other thing that 48-volt hybrid system does is run things like the air conditioning when the stop-start system is going. So if the engine turns off, you're still getting cool air pushed at you, whereas in other vehicles, when the engine turns off, it just blows whatever the outside air temp is at you. As far as the ride quality with these adaptive dampers, the rebound is significant. So I'm moving around on the road surface as it changes, but the dampening is pretty solid. I'm not punished by road imperfections, and that's pretty great because the tire sidewall isn't all that thick on these 19-inch wheels. And one other point to the suspension, in addition to having that rebound I mentioned, you really hear a pronounced thwomp when you go over road imperfections. And that does kind of disrupt the calm that you otherwise have in this cabin, because now here at speed, let me just quiet up, it's otherwise so quiet. Like, there's barely any discernible wind noise or road noise when other vehicles pass you. So it's just when you're going over bumps, you hear that thwomp and you go, oh yeah, that's right. I didn't spend the $100,000 for the S-Class. But even without spending S-Class money, the CLA's interior aesthetic and the quality of build feel as I'm driving down the road isn't just like a gussied up mainstream sedan. This feels like an elevated or premium product. But I'm ready to see where else the $60,000 has gone. So I'll move into the Sport Plus drive mode, bypassing Sport entirely, and put my foot to the floor. Did you hear the overrun on the upshift? So after just a moment for it to recalibrate, downshift, and then build the boost and go, like there, the CLA35 packed a punch. I mean, 302 horsepower is not going to make you black out with the acceleration mid-range, but it's not slow. And I just giggle with anticipation for every time I get to that upshift and it just thwomps the overrun from that exhaust system. Jeez, it does get moving. And yes, okay, so the around town experience I had about not really having any latency from the turbo meant that yes, I can get up and going quickly. But here in a full tilt wide open throttle situation, yes, you are waiting for that full boost to build for the compressor to really get churning for you to have that full acceleration punch. It kind of swells up. And then hold on, because the 35 is not messing around with the straight line speed. And now I want to try out the manual mode, because, I mean, there wasn't the quickest downshift from that eight speed in auto mode. So I'll try it on my own, switching it here, pulling on these large aluminum paddles. Ah, a little latency. It does hold the shift. It does an upshift for me, that's why I'm holding it there. The red line's at 6,500, so I just wanted to see if yes, it would go all the way to red line, and it does. I'm pleased with that. That was a quick shift. And you'll still get the thumping overrun if you're pulling the paddles yourself. Okay, so not a very sluggish response from that eight speed dual clutch. It's not the quickest dual clutch out there. It's not a PDK system, but it gives you the manual control you want, and importantly, gives you the gear you want quickly enough for you to stay in the meat of the power band. And does an upshift for you. That's the true mark of a performance machine. Now let's get some data on the board with a real world zero to 60 test. I've got my race box set up to record here, and from the sport plus drive mode, I can engage launch control, or what they call race start, by holding in both paddles, my foot firmly on the brake, hitting the throttle, then releasing both paddles and the brake, and rush into 60 in 4.69 seconds. AMG, that's quick. But does the CLA35 have what it takes to keep the smile on your face in the corners? I like that rhyme. That was good. Well, for one thing, the brakes don't have the most immediate bite. You've got to get pretty deep into the pedal before the strength of slowing comes on, and that saps a little bit of confidence from you, but the rest of the dynamics are pretty solid, good enough to crack my voice. It drives like a front wheel drive vehicle, but with the benefit of a limited slip differential and the rear tires helping to cut down on typical front drive understeer, so it doesn't shove the nose quite as hard out of the corner. So whereas a purely front drive car, you'd have to trail brake for rotation. The CLA35, you can certainly do that, but when the rear tires are helping you push the car a bit from the back end and rotate, you don't have to purely rely on those tactics. And the limited slip differential is able to move the power to the tire with grip and help it stay tucked into a curve. Now, there are some hot hatchbacks that are front drive with limited slip differentials, I'm thinking Civic Type R, and when very well done, they mitigate a lot of their understeer. The AMG tactic for the CLA35 is working just about as well, though. If we want to keep the comparison going, but now switch it to a more real competitor, the Integra Type S, the CLA35 weighs about 300 pounds more, and you do feel that weight in the corners. It manages itself appropriately with that adaptive damper suspension, but the other thing the CLA35 doesn't have as well sorted as the Integra Type S would be the steering feel. There's weight in the Sport Plus drive mode, and there's a degree of resistance that tells you most of what's going on, but it's just not as finely tuned, it's just not as tactile as the Integra Type S. Long and the short of it, though, does this drive like a legitimate AMG? 100%. It's a lot of fun. I might use a little more brake, though. These are smoking with their discomfort, but I've got to torture the brakes just a little longer. Easing it back a bit, let's discuss the top speed and fuel economy. The top speed for the CLA35 is 155 miles per hour. The fuel economy is 22 mpg city, 29 on the highway, and 25 combined. The starting price for the CLA35 is $56,100. If you want the CLA45S, that'd be about 10 grand more. This 35, as tested, is just under $63,000. Competitors, I mentioned one already. It's that Acura Integra Type S that starts at about $53,000. It makes 320 horsepower, gets to 60 in 5.1 seconds, has a top speed of 167 miles per hour, and fuel economy of 24 combined. It also comes with a manual transmission. There's also the Audi S3 that starts at just $48,000. It makes 306 horsepower, gets to 60 in 4.3 seconds, has top speed that matches this at 155 miles per hour, and fuel economy that also matches this at 25 combined. Before I reach a verdict, let's recap the good and bad for the CLA35, starting with the good. This is a very mature looking compact luxury vehicle, and it's stylish too, and that goes for the interior especially. It's a glitzy place to be. You feel special in here. There's great tech. You've got cool controls so you can customize, nice redundancies, and mostly good materials, apart from the gloss black right here that's going to get scratched up. It's also fun to drive. It's quick, and it makes great noises. In terms of dislikes, the rear passenger headroom is going to be cramped for anyone over maybe 5'7". The tire noise, particularly over imperfections in the road, is significant with the thuds that make their way into this cabin, and these seats are pretty tight, and they get somewhat irksome if you're in the saddle for a long time. Oh, and it is quite expensive, and it's that last point that makes it difficult for me to get super excited about the CLA35, because for being the most expensive relative to the S3 and Integra Type S, it doesn't make the most power, and it isn't the coolest looking to my eyes. I'd give that to the Integra Type S. Seat comfort and ride quality also would be nods toward the Integra Type S, and if you wanted a performance bargain in this segment, that would be the S3. Now, I do think there is a market for the CLA35. If you find yourself really valuing not just a fancy badge, but actually something that looks like it's maybe a cut above relative to those two vehicles I mentioned, then yeah, you'd go for this car. And as a daily driving experience, it feels very cool inside this cabin, and you've got some great features like this adaptive cruise control and steering assist, which is, yes, optional, but very well pulled off. Which would you guys choose? Would you go for the CLA35? Would you have that Integra Type S from Acura? Or would you choose the Audi S3? Let me know in the comments, and I hope you guys have enjoyed this POV drive review. If you did, please like, comment, and share it. Subscribe to the channel, hit that bell to get notified, and I'll see you again next time.