Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake review

The 250+ manages 0-62mph in a rapid-ish 6.8 seconds. It doesn't feel that fast on a sweep up the speedo like that, but what matters is performance out of corners and when overtaking. Hit the accelerator and like any EV it goes – now. A petrol car with the same on-paper acceleration stat would need to get on boost and shift down.

The 350+ with a 0-62mph time of 5.0s is appreciably faster, and yet not actually more thrilling.

Both run to 130mph at the top end. At somewhere between 60-70mph, depending on how hard you're accelerating, you feel a little click as the rear gearbox shifts up to its second ratio. Having a pair of ratios means better efficiency at all speeds because the motor will be running in its best rpm range.

Whether or not you have a front motor, the steering is accurate but numb, but geared sensibly through the arc so it's easy to be smooth. It's completely free of torque steer. There's little roll, not because it's got stiff anti-roll bars – which would give lateral rocking on bumpy straights – but because it's a low car and you sit low in it. An advantage over a crossover right there.

But the RWD gives you more fun, with an extra sense of grip, because you feel the rear tyres arrive at the edge of their traction.

Brake recuperation comes in various stages of strength, as well as an intelligent mode that does the best it can with the information available. The accelerator map even in strong regeneration modes is well calibrated for smooth driving. In base spec cars you select regeneration using the main drive selector stalk, but the AMG-Line ones have little wheel paddles.

The ride has a terrific fluency, over urban harshness or big fast bumpiness. You're not bothered by road noise on the smaller tyres, or wind noise. It all makes the car feel expensively engineered and made. It's close to sublime for a long, motorway cruise, ultra-stable and stress free.

What about the driver assist?

Beyond the legal minimum (front alert, speed alert, lane departure assist) the base car gets adaptive cruise, blind spot assist, a parking camera, evasive steering assist and radar-based recuperation.

Mercedes has always been big on developing this assistance stuff, and sure enough there's all you can imagine at the top of the CLA range. But Merc has also been historically stingy about putting it on the base cars. Same here.

This time there's a twist: all the cameras (10 of them), ultrasonic sensors (12) and radars (five) – plus an ultra-powerful water-cooled computer to process all the data – are fitted to every car. It's just that they're only fully activated if you pay for the up-spec car. Or if you buy a secondhand down-spec car and pay to activate. Or pay a monthly sub. On the one hand it's flexible, on the other… pretty hard to negotiate.

Anyway, in our experience it's all very well calibrated – except the speed limit indicator which like them all sometimes got it wrong – and works smoothly and unobtrusively until needed. Shortcuts can quench what you don't want. A long-press on the steering wheel volume mute kills the speed bonger; hit the car icon on the screen and you're immediately taken to a big icon for lane-assist on/off.