The first Mercedes-Benz CLS was met with a highly enthusiastic response from consumers. Its unique combination of sportiness and refined power, wrapped up in a svelte four-seater configuration set the bench mark, once again, for a Mercedes-Benz. A mark that BMW and Audi have been trying to catch up to with their 5-Series GT and A5 Sportback and A7, respectively.

How the CLS came about is that Mercedes-Benz announced some ten years ago that they wanted to make a premium car for every single buyer in the world. If you’re on a budget and want a small plastic car you can park front-on to the curb, they have the smart car for you. If you’re in the G8 and looking for something dripping with technology, an S-Class will do the job. If you want a coupe you have loads of Mercedes Benz’s to choose from. Seven in fact: The CLC, the C-Class Coupe, the SLK, the E-Class coupe, the SL, the CL, and the SLS of course. Aha, but the Germans sniffed out a gap even here. A coupe with the power of an atom bomb and two extra doors, so your G8 leader friends can come along for the ride as well… let’s just make the doors pillarless and, voila. Mercedes-Benz CLS was born.

It turned out to be such a phenomenon that one third of the buyers were ‘conquest’ buyers. No, that’s got nothing to do with the Corolla, it means they were snaffled from the clutches of those other two German companies. Mercedes-Benz believes with this new CLS they will conquest even more customers, and the majority of current CLS owners will upgrade to the new one as well. They kind of have to now, don’t they? The new one makes the old one look ever so slightly fossilised.

What Mercedes-Benz wanted to achieve was make the new CLS a more rational, as well as more emotional buying prospect. So they’ve widened it by 23 mm in the front and 30 mm in the rear, to make it more practical. The doors are now all lightweight aluminium to make the car lighter and sportier. There are 11 assistance systems helping you as you drive along. The new sculpted nose produces less drag, just 0.26 Cd. It now comes with nine, yes, count them, nine airbags. They found a way to fit two extra pelvis airbags. I don’t know where they are or what they do, but rest assured that your pelvis is now safer in a CLS.

New on-board technology includes an engine stop/start system fitted to all three models; this improves consumption by 8%. An active parking system that can parallel park the CLS by itself, new LED headlamps, and a new electro-mechanical ‘direct steering’ system that’s supposed to make the steering more direct, when it in fact does the exact opposite. In slow, urban driving it’s so light it feels like the steering rack is totally broken.

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he CLS 350 makes 225 kW and 370 Nm and will get you to 100 km/h in 6.1 seconds while only producing 159 g/km CO2 and consuming 6.8 L/100km. Seriously commendable figures for a normally aspirated 3.5-litre V6. This will set you back R793 000 at a starting price. We drove this vehicle first on the launch and were impressed with its effortless, planted handling that made it feel very nimble, even though it could have done with a bit more torque.

The jump up to the CLS 500 is rather substantial from there on: 300 kW and 600 Nm from its 4.6-litre, bi-turbo V8 with direct, piezo injectors: 0 – 100 km/h in 5.2 seconds, 210 g/km CO2 and fuel consumption of 9.0 L/100km, with prices starting at R996 000. By all intents and purposes these figures should qualify it as the CLS AMG model. But oh, no… brace yourself.

The R1 319 500, Mercedes-Benz CLS 63 AMG makes 386 kW & 700 Nm from its 5.5-litre bi-turbo V8, 0 – 100 km/h blitzes past in 4.4 seconds and you’ll be producing 231 g/km CO2 as you consume 9.9 L/100km. Yeah, right. We saw 17.8 L/100km on the trip computer when we returned the keys and believe me, there was a lot of steady motorway driving thrown into that figure. Rather bizarrely, buying the top dog AMG doesn’t even give you the full array of Mercedes madness at that price. For that you need to dip even deeper into the savings.

The AMG Performance Pack (not to be confused with the AMG Sports Pack, which is purely aesthetic) will set you back R82 000 and gives you an extra 24 kW and 100 Nm. But what’s the point of 100 Nm extra when you’re still limited to 250 km/h? Ah, Mercedes-Benz can sell you a ‘V-Max’ package that derestricts your AMG and gives a top speed of 300 km/h. For that privilege you must part with R24 000. To a mortal like me that sounds like a bit of a rip off, but Mercedes Benz say 90% of AMG model buyers have ticked the boxes on these two options. Why not I suppose… there’s no point invading France and only getting as far as Nice and not Paris, before turning back.

CLS models come with the 7G-Tronic automatic transmission, but the AMG gets a 7-speed ‘Speed Shift MCT’ transmission. This must have a huge struggle dealing with the hurricane under the bonnet, because it’s far from brilliant at changing gear. My stint in the CLS 63 AMG was something akin to watching an old Chinese kung-fu movie where the sound and the video had become out of sync. You bury your foot on the throttle and the car explodes forward on a cascade of noise (And that bi-turbo V8 does sound better than ever in the CLS), and as you snatch a gear change on the paddle, nothing happens, then a second later, way after the punch should’ve landed, the gears swap and you’re kicked in the kidneys again. Be in no doubt that the CLS 63 AMG is monstrously fast, but that slow shift action takes you out of the zone, makes you back off the pace. You feel it too, changing down, as you prepare the car into a corner. It could be faster, but then again the gearboxes have always been the Achilles heel of hugely powerful Mercedes-Benz AMG’s. This one is better, but by no means perfect.

However, I fear I may have become a little distracted by the AMG badging on the CLS 63 AMG. You see, having AMG badging on the Mercedes-Benz you’re driving is a bit like a movie with an R18 SNLV rating. You kind of totally change your perception of the movie before its even started and brace yourself for no holds barred blood, guts and pornography… totally forgetting to follow the plotline. It’s easy to fall into the same trap with an AMG Mercedes-Benz, and Mercedes-Benz is guilty of getting carried away by it too, mind you.

What Mercedes-Benz wanted to make in the CLS is a four door sedan with sporting, high speed refinement, something I’d like to imagine travelling 1st class on the Concorde may have been like. And to that end, one has to say, the CLS totally pulls it off.

Prices include a 2-year/ unlimited km warranty and 60 000km maintenance plan.