Looked at the Mercedes CLS today at the dealer...

[Sir_GT]

...and walked away sort of... well, to be frank, slightly disappointed.

My father-in-law was looking for a new car, and I had a couple of brochures sent over, and he liked the CLS the most. Fortunately, one of the Merc dealers had one on site, so we had a look see...

The thing is SMALL. Way smaller than I expected at least. All that "based on the E-class" platform that we've all read basically came to nothing. I sat in the back (I'm 6'3") and my head was literally up against the ceiling. Rear headroom isn't just bad, it's terrible. If you're in the region of being 6-foot or more, you can forget about leaning your head back against the headrest... you'll have to lean forward during the duration you're sitting in it.

I know it's meant to be a 4-door coupe, but so is the Mazda RX-8, and the Mazda has FAR greater headroom (and just rear passenger comfort all around) than the CLS. The windows don't really help either. You could see better out of the rear of the RX-8. The whole experience of sitting in the back of the CLS was pretty disorienting to be honest - you're not comfortable, you can't see out, you can't lean back unless you're shorter than 5'8", and you can't stretch your legs either. I mean, without exaggerating, the Mini Cooper has better rear passenger headroom - seriously.

Mind, it does get better. Sitting in the front was good. You sat low and cocooned (no E-class space here matey), in fact, it felt tighter than a regular C-class. Whether or not that feeling was created by the small-ish windows (high waistline, low roofline), I can't say for sure. I did like it though, because you felt like you were in a sports car.

I wish I could say fit and finish were superb... but they weren't. The interior panel gaps were terrible. If this was an Audi, I think it would've been recalled before it even left Inglostadt. I could imagine an Audi technician screaming at the delivery transporter: "Halt! Nein! Dey not finisk!"

Seriously, if you don't believe me, try sitting in one next time, then once you've closed the doors, try seeing which of your five fingers can fit in between the B-pillar and the front and rear doors. My thumb slid in... and I have big hands.

Tsk, tsk. Really now Mercedes, shame on you.

Quality of materials? Alright would be the best description. Lots of fake, leather-looking plastic. I know every manufacturer is guilty of this, but at least some of them (BMW and Audi) use a softer kind of plastic for their £35k+ models... the CLS starts at £41k, and the plastic leather was exactly like you would find on the £20k C-class... very hard and cheap.

As I was becoming more and more disillusioned, I stepped outside and tried looking at it... and goddamn, I've said it before and I'll say it again, that is one sexy fucking Merc. No Merc has the right to be that sexy. It trully is a gorgeous car. We then had the engine switched on, and - it wasn't bad. Granted, we only saw the CLS 350, it still sounded pretty good (it should, especially with tailpipes that wide).

I really wanted to like this car. Hell, I even convinced myself (and my father-in-law) that this is finally a Mercedes worth spending money on. It does look like nothing else, but in a good way, but I fear that the package was compromised because of this. Somehow, the decision to use the E-class platform pretty much shot the relevance of the CLS in the foot. This was supposed to be a four-door, sleek, sexy, and sporty, luxury coupe. Instead, it ended being half of all of those, and not anywhere near as great as it should've been.

Summary? It's a footballer's car. It's the "now" car. The "it" car. Thing is, once that novelty wears off, the car's shortcoming will start to show, and I fear this may harm the car's credibility in being a pioneering product. If only Mercedes had the common sense to use a bigger platform (S/CL-class platform would have been absolutely perfect) in order to compensate for the loss of space due to the design.

It (the CLS) really is such a terribly missed opportunity.