2025 Mercedes-AMG CLA 45 S Review: The Price of Power

On our shores, this is currently the smallest car, not SUV, but car in the AMG family

And I'm not talking about those warmed-over AMGs like the 43s and the 53s, and in this case

the 35. No, I mean the red-blooded, fire-breathing, performance-above-everything-else-AMG models. And that's what this is, the CLA45S. Now, I'm a big fan of this car in the summer

but I've never really got to test it in these kind of conditions the dead of winter where it

just won't stop snowing and with over 400 horsepower in this little car thank god it

has 4matic all-wheel drive but I'm really cold so I'm gonna get inside

So as I mentioned, this car has over 400 horsepower, 416 to be exact, and there's also 369 pound-feet

of torque. That all comes from just a 2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder. No hybrids here

just a turbo and gas. And if you think about it, that's pretty incredible. The only vehicles

currently sold that make over 200 horsepower per liter are supercars. This is the only somewhat

regular car that achieves that feat. Remember back in the day when the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo

and the Subaru WX STI both made about 300 horsepower off of a two liter turbo? Well

this ups that by well over 100 horsepower. It's an incredible feat of engineering and Mercedes

claims every single engine in one of these 45Ss is handcrafted. With all that power, it's pretty

safe to assume there'd be some turbo lag as the boost builds up. And there really isn't turbo lag

it's just the engine needs to be in the higher RPMs to really get all that power unleashed

But if you keep it in the higher gears using the eight-speed dual clutch transmission

you're kind of always on the sweet spot of the power band. And yes, this is a dual clutch

So it has all the usual drawbacks of a dual clutch, like being a little delayed going from forward to reverse or leaving from a dead stop

But in a car like this, that's perfectly acceptable because the response in the quickness of the upshifts and downshifts when really hustling the car around is well worth any sort of tradeoff

Mercedes has been making dual clutches for a while. And although they maybe don't get all the credit some of the other manufacturers do, they make a really good system, especially when it comes to performance

And speaking of good systems, there's the 4MATIC all-wheel drive system. And the CLA is a front-wheel drive bias car by default

I mean, the 250 can come front-wheel drive. So usually that means the all-wheel drive system isn't as good at sending enough power to the rear wheels

Well, in this vehicle, depending on drive mode, it can actually have a rear-wheel drive bias in the sense of how much power is transferred

And of course using the center differential and traction control and ABS and all those things it possible to send power to whatever wheel needs it the most even a singular outside wheel while cornering which helps this thing hustle around corners Now back to the power Mercedes claims this car can do 0 to 60 in 4 seconds flat and I fully believe it It may not be the quickest initially off a line but once that

power starts building it launches off. But more impressive is probably its rolling speed. When

needed to make a passing maneuver or fire out of a corner you can use the paddle shifters to be in

the exact right gear and this thing hooks up and goes now i get the engine note might not be for

everyone being a four-cylinder and whatnot but mercedes has done the best with what they got i

feel like the growls it gets at the higher rpms and it's just naturally going to sound pretty

aggressive because this is such a high-strung high-powered four-cylinder here listen to this

Downshifts, they're also very quick and can be very loud

Now, it's not the lightest car despite its small size. It's over 3,700 pounds, which is

quite heavy considering the size of the car, but it does have all of that turbo hardware and

all-wheel drive and luxury features. And you know what? The way things are today

a lot of these luxury performance cars are just heavy. Look at the M2 and the M5 and some of

Mercedes' other AMG models. The CLA does a good job hiding the weight when it comes to handling as

well. This is currently on winter rubber because it is winter and I'll get to snow driving in a

second but with the 255 wide tires all around it provides plenty of grip and the car is more

neutral when hustling it through corners wet or dry than I was expecting and a lot of that's a

testament to the all-wheel drive system as well as all the electronic gadgets that help it rotate

through corners. It's not as noticeable nor hustles the back end around quite the same as say Acura

is super handling all-wheel drive but if someone got in this car and didn't know which way the

engine was pointing and what wheels got the majority of the power they probably wouldn't know

The steering's pretty good too. It's nicely weighted and quick to respond. I don't have a ton of feel

through it but I blame the soft squishy winter tires for that more than Mercedes actual engineering

That said it's easy to make this car hang on in corners when wanted

maybe things are felt a little different towards the maximum grip levels but like i said this is

winter and a lot of the time i had this car it was snowing and the roads were covered in snow so i

didn't really get to test that but what i did get to test was its winter driving abilities and

despite its low ground clearance this car proved to be quite good in the snow it just grips and

goes and turns i mean if you over push things of course it will start to lose some of that

mechanical grip, but in one of the more extreme Sport Plus race or even Mercedes drift mode

the back end will kick out a bit and come around helping you through corners. And if I had a big

enough open enough area I sure I could just be kicking the back end out sliding this thing around all day long Although a lot of AMGs are going all drive much like BMW M cars and Audi RS cars always have been

this is the one that I think I'd want to be in the most during a big snowstorm. Although I kind of said it was heavy, it's light relative, it's a small shape

and just the way the all-wheel drive system works, I'd have the most confidence outside of, say, an AMG SUV

but that's a whole different world. The brakes, there's good pedal feel and as soon as you get on them it just keeps

your foot steady there's no sort of squish down the harder you push. Again I

can't really comment on ultimate braking ability or power because of the

weather. I will say the ABS system works really well when in icy conditions

So Mercedes has always called the CLA a coupe. If you go on the manufacturer's

website it's even listed under coupes which is a bit confusing because I go

onto the website looking for the smallest Mercedes sedan and it's underneath coupes but I get it it's

because of the swoopy headliner and I even think it's helped to get people prepared for just how

tiny the rear seat area is because it's much more coupe-like than a regular four-door this is a very

form over function when it comes to the exterior style and it hasn't changed dramatically since it

first came out it has been updated here and there and I do like the front end of this version the

best, although the rear I'm still not fully crazy about. I will say I do like this version with the

AMG treatment with the four tip quad exhaust and how the lower bumper is done. And this is also

sort of the most subtle AMG 45S there is. There's two exterior option packages that make it a little

more aggressive and sinister looking and let people know sort of what you're driving. This model though

it looks like any regular CLA unless you know what a 45 is or you see those four exhaust tips

Even the 19-inch wheels look pretty regular in terms of Mercedes and probably one that can even be upgraded on lesser models

I kind of appreciate that about the car because if I keep the exhaust quiet, which I rarely do

but if I did and I just wanted to drive sedately around town, no one would really give me a second look

And it's not just the exhaust that's adjustable. There's different drive modes, like one for slippery conditions, individual comfort, sport, sport plus, race

pretty much filling the entire spectrum of what you might want in a performance car

This tester also has the optional adaptive dampers which go through three settings which

are comfort, sport and sport plus but honestly I think they should be relabeled stiff, stiffer

and stiffest because even in comfort mode this vehicle rides pretty hard but I can't blame it

It is a full-blown AMG where performance is more important than passenger comfort

Its performance seats offer great support yet they're still pretty comfortable although

the back and the bottom cushion are fairly thin and fairly hard so I can imagine over a long

distance drive things might start to cramp up or feel sore and as I mentioned earlier rear seat

space is pretty small there's less than 36 inches of headroom and less than 34 inches of legroom

so it's really going to be an area for children younger teenagers smaller adults which is actually

fine for the CLA 45s that I'm driving because this is once again I've said this many times a

performance car. So don't think someone's buying this as a main family vehicle. This shape maybe

doesn work as well on say the 250 sort of the entry level CLAs but when you get higher in the performance yeah this is meant for probably a driver and one passenger most of the time So inside we have the AMG interior design which gives the cool stripes package in front of the passenger on the dashboard and adds a nice little touch to the otherwise black interior

that has the red striping. There's other brushed aluminum accents here and there and some other

silver pieces. At night, the interior looks great with the 64 ambient color option. And being a

Mercedes, there's the two-tone options you can get as well, which again lets you kind of

personalize the car and makes it look a little more sophisticated at night. Of course, this being

a top-line model with a bunch of option packages added, I've got all sorts of luxuries here

heated and ventilated front seats, power front seats, head-up display, the fully digital

customizable driver information center. There's nice suede inserts in the door. There's the AMG

buttons on the steering wheel, which I love. It makes customizing the car or changing performance

on the fly so easy the right dial i can pick a specific drive mode and on the left side i can

adjust all the different performance bits like if i want the car to be manual or automatic

suspension stiffness the amg dynamics exhaust sound all those sort of things it just makes it

real simple and easy to do on the fly i know a lot of vehicles have various buttons to do this but

they're usually just hard labeled buttons and you might not remember exactly what feature you want

well here they're actual digital screens and it tells you what feature you're changing and what

level it's at which just makes it so easy and quick to do on the fly. The one bit of technology I don't

like and have never liked since they introduced it are the haptic controls on the steering wheel

There's sort of an up down side to side for your thumb one on the left one on the right. The one

on the left controls all of the driver information center stuff and the one on the right is for the

infotainment system. Now the left one set to change audio stations while driving by pushing left and

right. The problem is pushing up and down changes what information is being displayed in the middle

of the gauge cluster and not more than once pretty much more than once every time I drove the car

I would accidentally change the center screen while trying to change audio stations then it

would take me a while to get back and try to find the station and the screen I wanted which is very distracting but there's no other tuning knob anywhere that I can do that so I just wish

Mercedes would stop being so smart with their technology and maybe like bring back some basic

things there's a volume roller in the middle here like it'd be nice to have maybe a tuning knob or

an action dial or something sort of like the vehicle used to have. The CLA 45S is one of those

cars that I'd forgotten just how good it is. It's been out for so long it kind of slips under the

radar but this is a fun car to drive and it is a true AMG. Now unfortunately that means it has

true AMG pricing and it starts at 68,200 including destination charges in the US or over 76,000 in

Canada and as tested this is $81,000 US and over $89,000 in Canada. Now that is a lot of money for

such a small car but its biggest rival the Audi RS3 is priced very similarly with very similar

performance so I guess it's market accurate but think of it this way. This is the most affordable

AMG car. I'm talking full AMG models. It is a bit of a bargain compared to its larger sibling

while still offering a lot of the same performance