Mercedes-Benz CLA 220 CDI Shooting Brake, motoring review

Jamie Merrill is on the hunt for a valid reason for this car to exist

Sleek: the new Mercedes CLA Shooting Brake

PRICE: £32,825
ENGINE CAPACITY: 2.1-litre diesel
POWER OUTPUT (BHP @ RPM): 175 @ 3,600-3,800
TOP SPEED (MPH): 143
FUEL ECONOMY (MPG): 67.3
CO2 EMISSIONS (G/KM): 108

In the nine years that I've lived in London, I have never had to load a shotgun into the back of the car and drive off to slaughter an urban fox or a red deer that has strayed beyond the boundary of Richmond Park. If this suddenly became a necessity, then thanks to the distinct lack of forests, bogs and moorland in the capital, I'm sure that a Fiat 500 would be sufficient for my hunting and gathering needs.

Mercedes has other ideas, as evidenced by the launch of the new CLA Shooting Brake model, a car that is “Designed for Urban Hunting”. Shooting Brake is another term car makers use for estate (see wagon and tourer) and comes from an era when traditional coachbuilders made something longer-roofed from a sports car or coupe.

It was a 19th-century motor car that would take a brace of gentlemen on the hunt with plenty of room for firearms and dogs. It's the sort of thing that arrived in later series of Downton Abbey.

In the case of the CLA Shooting Brake, it's derived from the firm's A-Class coupe, which gets bigger in the form of the standard CLA and a little larger in the form of the CLA Shooting Brake, but still smaller than the much larger and more expensive CLS Shooting Brake. Got it? Me neither.

Essentially, it's a sleek estate car. A very, very pretty one. The longer roof over the CLA four-door coupe transforms the proportions into something rather refined. The only hitch is that, for an estate, it's not that much more spacious that a normal car. Its nearest rivals are the more conventionally shaped VW Golf Estate and the Honda Civic Tourer, which are both considerably cheaper and more spacious.

Mercedes claims that is has more boot space than a C-class estate, but that's only if you stop counting loadspace when you get to the gunwales (window line); that sloping roof might look pretty but it's not practical.

As for the passengers, they enjoy a fairly restricted existence in the back seats. Lord Downton would not feel particularly comfortable and there would certainly be no room for his late Labrador, Isis. That's the Shooting Brake all over: a nice idea, but despite the bold claims, not of any use in the city whatsoever.