The 2024 Mercedes-Benz CLE Is The Rebirth Of The CLK

Just a few short years ago, you could walk into any Mercedes-Benz showroom and choose from an astounding array of coupes. From the C-Class coupe to the S-Class coupe and everywhere in between, the personal luxury car was back at Mercedes in a big way. However, while people could walk in and buy a sweet new coupe, relatively few did. As a result, Mercedes-Benz announced model consolidation, killing off most of its coupes to have fewer models covering the market. Weirdly, this isn’t the first time Mercedes has pulled its coupe range back. In the later half of the 1990s, the magnificent C124 E-Class coupe was replaced by a cheaper, C-Class-based car called the CLK because nobody wanted to spend S-Class money on a six-cylinder E-Class. More than two decades since the launch of the CLK, the CL model prefix is back. Say hello to the Mercedes-Benz CLE.

On first glance, the CLE looks like a C-Class run through a hotel trouser press, and I don’t mean that disparagingly. From the grille shape to the headlights to the sharp character lines running down the fenders, everything seems crisper, sharper, and more stylish. Well, almost everything, as some of the details are questionable. For example, the fake vents on the front end have a smattering of tiny three-pointed stars molded into them, which feels somewhat vulgar.

Oh, and the tail lights look bad. One ounce Infiniti QX55, two cups massive black bezel from a late-aughts HTC phone, bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes and serve up as a cheap-looking element on an otherwise very classy car. Mind you, the taillights aren’t the biggest annoyance on the outside of the Mercedes-Benz CLE.

Judging by the massive frit bands around the quarter windows, this doesn’t look to be a pillarless coupe, and a quick perusal of the door card reveals just two window switches and a shot of the interior shows the B-pillar. This is rather disappointing as Mercedes does pillarless coupes so well. From the C123 to the last E-Class coupe, there’s just something magical about opening everything up and letting the breeze in. Without B-pillars in the way, a pillarless coupe feels almost as close to nature as a cabriolet, but without the maintenance of a cloth roof or the heft of a power-retractable hardtop.

What’s more, you can get the CLE as a cabriolet, meaning the bulk of the structure needed to build a pillarless coupe version should already exist. While going with a fixed pillar saves cost and complexity, what are people buying German luxury cars for if not cost and complexity?

The sting of having B-pillars fades as soon as you look at the engine lineup for the CLE. Sure, the base CLE 300 4MATIC comes with Mercedes’ perfectly adequate 255-horsepower two-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, but that’s not what you want. Instead, step on up to the CLE 450 4MATIC and you’ll get an engine never seen in a C-Class: The sublime three-liter twin-turbocharged M256 inline-six. Pumping out 375 horsepower and 369 lb.-ft. of torque in this application, every experience I’ve had with this engine has been nothing but positive. It feels impossibly smooth, pulls with refined determination all the way to redline, and has one of the best stop-start systems I’ve ever experienced. It is Alfred Pennyworth on 93 octane.

Regardless of which engine you choose in the CLE, power makes its way to all four wheels through a variant of Mercedes’ familiar nine-speed automatic transmission. The marque claims that this particular gearbox has seen its ancillaries strategically compacted and lightened, including a 30 percent reduction in the weight of the “transmission control,” which sounds peculiarly vague. Speaking of mandatory powertrain bits, every CLE gets a 48-volt mild hybrid system that uses a 17 kilowatt integrated starter generator to smooth out stop-start and provide a little power boost when necessary.

On the inside, the Mercedes-Benz CLE is pure C-Class, which isn’t a bad thing. The current C-Class has a gorgeous selection of materials and a massive 12.3-inch portrait-oriented touchscreen infotainment system that’s sure to wow buyers, although capactive touch controls on the steering wheel elicit their fair share of eye-rolling. Still, in-car tech rarely dates well, so eschewing the new E-Class’ three-screen setup may help the CLE in the long run.

Don’t think of the Mercedes-Benz CLE as spartan though. It still comes with its own app store than includes TikTok, a standard Burmester audio system with headrest speakers set into stylish high-back seats, and enough multicolor ambient lighting to coat a streamer’s bedroom. In addition, Mercedes claims that each driver profile covers “around 800” adjustable parameters, which means that a printed owner’s manual would likely take up more shelf space than the complete works of Dickens. While you don’t need a degree in computer science to operate this car, it might help.

Expect the 2024 Mercedes-Benz CLE coupe to roll into showrooms in early 2024 at a starting price of, well, nobody knows, but Mercedes-Benz has to tread carefully here. Sizing positions the CLE closer to the E-Class, but this thing’s also a C-Class coupe replacement. Some semblance of affordability seems necessary in order to pick up previous-generation C-Class coupe owners, but the new C-Class is unbelievably expensive so it’s anyone’s guess what the CLE might compete with on sticker. Could the six-cylinder model possibly kiss Lexus LC 500 pricing? We’ll just have to wait and see. If pricing ends up closer to the BMW 4-Series coupe, Mercedes-Benz could have a winner here, B-pillars and all.

(Photo credits: Mercedes-Benz)

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