Clarkson review: Mercedes CLE 450 Premier Edition

Jeremy ClarksonColumnist

@jeremyclarkson

5 min read

11:19AMJune 27, 2024

The Weekend Australian Magazine

Sleek: the Mercedes CLE 450 Premier Edition

Understanding the Mercedes range used to be so simple. You had the C-class, which would arrive outside your house at the appointed hour with an air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror and take you in a cloud of pine-fresh chemicals to Luton. Then there was the larger E-class, which would whizz you to Gatwick. And then, right at the top, there was the S-class, which would get you in sumptuous silence to the very end of Terminal 5 at Heathrow. Because that’s where the British Airways first-class check-in is located.

Even the numbering made sense. If it said 200 on the boot lid, you knew it had a 2-litre engine. If it said 350, you knew it had a 3.5. And if it said 6.3, you knew it had a 6.2-litre V8. I never did understand that one, but we’ll let it slide.

Today, though, the Mercedes range is all over the place. You’ve got the EQS and the EQA and the CLA and the GLB, and on and on it goes. None of it makes any sense.

They sent something called a CLE 450 to my house last week, so I assumed it would have a 4.5-litre engine. Wrong. It is a 3-litre turbo. So what about the CLE bit then? It’s halfway, apparently, between a C-class coupe and an E-class coupe. So it’s a niche inside a niche, then. And when they thought of it in some dismal marketing meeting I bet there was a lot of high-fiving and some oompah music.

As we are not in a marketing meeting, it’s probably best to tell you that prices for the CLE range start in the UK at £46,620 ($89,400), and despite a rather jelly-mould profile it’s quite a pretty car, and that the interior, finished in quilted white, Miami-spec leather, is a lovely place to sit.

To find out what it’s like to drive, I decided to use it to get to an early morning Grand Tour meeting. And obviously, as it’s a modern car, built to comply with all the latest net-zero and safety requirements from our glorious leaders, I had to climb aboard 15 minutes before I needed to set off so that I had time to disable all the annoying beeps and bongs.

It wasn’t too hard. Just a couple of submenus, a bit of gentle scrolling and some light swiping and I had full, manual control of the brakes and the steering. Then I gave the satnav system my destination, which was also easy, and set off. Lovely.

Except that on my farm’s drive it started bonging at me and flashing up warning notices on both the dashboard and the windscreen’s head-up display to say that I was breaking the 30km/h speed limit. Realising I had forgotten to turn this function off, I stopped and spent 20 minutes trying to work out how it might be done. I failed.

So now I was running late and I couldn’t make up the time because every time I went near the throttle the bonging resumed. At one point I found myself behind a furniture removals lorry being driven in a very spirited fashion. If your grand piano was recently delivered with one leg missing, I know why. But when all is said and done, it was still a lorry. And I couldn’t keep up.

Inside the cabin

Well, I could. But whenever I drove at the same speed he was going, I was driven to distraction by the endless warnings that I was breaking the law. I know, I know, speed limits are just a Liberal Democrat’s opinion, but, whatever, I surrendered

And just as I was thinking, “What was the point of designing a car like this when you can never go faster than people were going in 1904,” a pleasant woman’s voice suddenly said, “Would you like to know the football results?”

As it was 7.50am on a Wednesday morning, I didn’t think there were any results of any great importance. But that wasn’t the main issue. Why had the car, out of the blue, said this? I was driving along at 29km/h, minding my own business, and it had decided to ask me a completely random question. And then, a few moments later, the same robot woman oiled her way out of the speaker system to explain that she wanted to “evolve”. Hmm. I’ve seen enough sci-fi stuff to know that quite the last thing we need is a machine that can learn to learn. Because the next thing you know, she’ll decide you’re not necessary, take control of the steering and the accelerator and drive you at 150km/h into a tree.

It turns out that if you begin by saying “Hey Mercedes”, she will reply by saying “I’m listening” or “How can I help?” She’s basically Alexa with windscreen wipers. So I said “Hey Mercedes” and then asked, “Can you turn this f..king speed limit warning off?” And she did.

I then got carried away. I asked her to name the village we were driving though, and who I was, and what is the capital of Peru. She did, so I upped the ante, asking her if she knew how many people died on the Titanic. Easy. “OK, clever clogs,” I said, “name them.”

There was a petulant silence. The sort of robot silence that made me think she was busy searching for the nearest tree and routing the throttle controls through her hardware. I noticed this a lot in the coming days. If you asked a difficult question she didn’t reply. It was as if she was too embarrassed to say she didn’t know. Which suggests she has an ego. And who wants two of those controlling a car at the same time?

But the worst thing is that if you asked a lot of questions, one after the other, you eventually got to the point where she sounded annoyed. You’d say, “Hey Mercedes” and she’d say, rather petulantly, “Yes”. Which tells me that on top of the ego there’s a temper.

As a result I asked her if she could turn herself off. There was another petulant silence.

So I said “Hey Mercedes” again. And she replied. Which means that, no, she can’t turn herself off. She is Skynet. She’s evolving. And she has control over the car you’re in. So, what’s her car like then? Pretty good actually.

It’s got a decent amount of space in the back, the boot’s huge, and there’s that usual sense you get in a Mercedes that everything is very well screwed together. It’s comfortable too.

And, thanks to the EU rulemakers, it’s very nearly as fast as a well-driven removals lorry.