Sensational Mercedes CLS Shooting Brake

...by introducing the sleek CLS four-door coupe.

People said a coupe shouldn't have four doors and that the CLS wouldn't work.

Tens of thousands of sales later Mercedes has not only proven the doubters were wrong, but must be quietly chuckling at how many other car marques have since introduced their own four-door coupes.

Cheekily, Mercedes has taken the matter another stage with what it calls a coupe-estate, an ultra stylish five-door CLS station wagon. Not only has the once staid German maker stunned the world with its estate-coupe it has also pulled a name out of history - shooting brake.

Shooting brake is a body type once associated with upmarket British station wagons – Rolls-Royce built one over a hundred years ago – and is named for the horse-drawn wagons used to carry shooting parties to country areas to enjoy the sport of hunting.

We first admired the Mercedes CLS wagon at the 2010 New York Motor Show and now we have attended its world debut at a major function at the famed Brooklands racing oval in England. A perfect spot for a vehicle that’s breaking new ground with its sleek-but-sensible format.

While the styling is all about the rear end of the CLS Shooting Brake we first of all examined the sporting front end and loved the mildly aggressive grille and headlight shapes.

At the rear the roof slopes down in a manner resembling the CLS four-door coupe and the rearward extension has been beautifully shaped to show this is not your mundane everyday load hauler. We particularly like the way the side windows slope down to a point at the rear and love the shiny finish that surrounds them.

Inside, the sporting coupe look works exceptionally well, with quality materials, easy to read dials and a feeling of ambiance that’s worked well for Mercedes for generations. At this stage no journalists have been able to drive the new Mercedes-Benz Shooting Brake, the global launch hosted by the company chairman Dr. Dieter Zetsche was purely a visual reveal.

While the Shooting Brake’s shape is unashamedly sleek, we were surprised to find it doesn’t do too badly in the ‘sensible’ stakes as well. The rear seat has good headroom and legroom and we would have no problem sitting back there for a long interstate trip.

As is often the way these days, the rear area is set up for two individuals; there’s also a somewhat cramped centre seat so five can be carried for short and not particularly comfortable trips. Luggage space is surprisingly good as well, the extravagantly long tail of the Shooting Brake means substantially long objects can be transported. However, large boxy items are restricted by the slope of the roof.

In a lovely touch harking back to the days of the horse drawn shooting brakes and the old motor wagons, the Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake has a timber lined floor compete with shiny cross bracing. It looks stunning, but it would be best not to sit anything on top of the timber that could potentially damage it.

The Mercedes CLS in four-door coupe format has already impressed Australian buyers. This fascinating new wagon variant seems likely to draw even more buyers into the Benz fold when it arrives in Australia in September.

Prices and models are yet to be confirmed. The only definite information we have at this stage is that the high-performance CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake is coming. Australian buyers just love the AMG variants in all Mercedes models and are amongst the top buyers, sometimes the top buyers, of these stunning machines.

We speculate that the CLS 500 will also be on the list together with several affordable models with petrol and diesel power. Anticipate the Shooting Brakes to be priced about $3000 to $5000 above the equivalent four-door coupes.

Stay tuned and we will bring full details and local drives of the stunning new CLS Shooting Brake from Mercedes as soon as they hit the docks downunder.