This post was originally published on Autocar
Old meets new: does the CLE 53 capture some of the CLK’s magic?
Despite their different briefs and eras, there are many similarities between the CLE and CLK
The arches give it away. The Mercedes-AMG CLE 53 Coupé arrived on a wave of exciting claims – ones we knew we would have to put sternly to the test.
But given that AMG had gone to the effort of extending its rear wheel arches by 75mm (accommodating a similarly widened axle and wheels wrapped in bespoke Michelin rubber), it was safe to assume it would hit harder than the 53s before it. And it promptly did.
Golly, did AMG need the shot in the arm that the CLE 53 brought too, after its reputation had been more than a little shaken by the response to a hybridised C63 with half the usual cylinder count.
That car had proved a far cry from the AMG glory days – a time perhaps no better represented than by this gleaming white CLK 63 Black Series. Launched in 2007, the model became a bona fide modern classic very soon after. It’s a pure distillation of the DNA scattered more sparingly beneath the CLE’s skin.
The perfect barometer to see just how ‘AMG’ this 53 really is, it also has bruising rear arches, although it wears them like uncouthly tacked-on shoulder pads. On a biting winter’s day like today, when the roads are cold and greasy, the newer car should be the more immediately inviting of the two, but the scarcity of the CLK makes its door handle impossible to resist.
Just 30 were allocated to the UK at its launch, and while this left-hand-drive example suggests a few might have sneaked over since, howmanyleft.co.uk reckons just 28 remain in Britain. No wonder it’s worth more now than its “frankly ridiculous” £99,517 at launch. Yes, those are the words of our ever-scrupulous testers…
“This is the most extreme Mercedes currently on sale, including the SLR,” we declared when we drove it in January 2008. The gawps and guffaws it still elicits at mere walking pace prove its enduring shock value. And there is true substance to back up its style.
This was the contemporary Formula 1 safety car wearing a pair of numberplates. Over and above the ‘regular’ CLK 63, it gained 26bhp, revisions to its gear ratios, brakes and steering and a newly adjustable suspension set-up (albeit manually), with wider tracks – 75mm front, 66mm rear – necessitating those cartoonish arches.
There was extra bracing in the engine bay and swathes of carbonfibre just about everywhere – even across the chasm left empty by its absent rear seats.
Yet its kerb weight matched its base car, despite a bank of blanked-out switches; there’s not even a parking sensor to be found, somewhat terrifyingly, given the car’s value.
However, this doesn’t immediately feel like the track-hardened, driver-focused weapon it was lauded as in the late noughties. Sure, its engine fires ferociously into life, practically rocking the bodywork around you. But the steering wheel looks mundane Merc, no aggressive wings or roll-cage latticework fill your mirrors and a fiddly lever operates an occasionally reticent automatic gearbox.
It’s a world away from the lightened flywheels and chuntering revs of other Stuttgart-born specials of the era.
Like the very best driver’s cars, though, the Black Series’ magic is easily found. While the transmission does feel ponderous under interrogation (even its sportier modes need a mental ‘one… two…’ between shifts), every other element of the car feels so constantly alive that you’ll never pine for anything else.
Beyond the Comfort, Sport or Manual modes of the ’box, there’s nothing left to press beyond the ESP button (which does ‘on’ or ‘off’ with a mere tap), so you can get right into the thick of driving it.
It’s surprising how compliant the ride feels. We’re used to the gnarliest specials rattling our teeth and spine in road use, but the Black Series is never anything other than a fast, ferocious Mercedes-Benz, smoothing the edges of Britain’s road surfaces.
You could spend hundreds of miles ensconced in its bucket seat and feel brilliant. There’s certainly little need to trailer it to a track day, even if an SUV with a tow hook might deliver better fuel efficiency.
But you will almost certainly set an early alarm so you can take the long route there. This is a real ‘last gallon on Earth’ contender, a car designed with its focus almost unwaveringly on fun.
And despite its incongruous comfort, it’s no softie, providing the feel and fidelity of some of the greatest track specials yet demanding little of their commitment.
Its steering bubbles away, telegraphing the movements of a car that teeters on the edge of mimicking a V8 Caterham in its swagger. You feel the moment its driven wheels begin to relinquish grip, as the rear starts to arc wide, and it’s your choice whether to feed in more power and indulge it or back off and neaten things up. It can do neat and tidy, but it feels at its most authentic moving around, smearing the Tarmac even with the ESP on.
And, boy, is it quick once you’re pointing straight, bounding forwards in a way that belies its 1.7 tonnes. It’s a car I simply don’t want to hand back. If it’s this spectacular now, what must it have felt like at the time?
The CLE 53 can never match such large heart and character, but it exhibits real dynamism right from the off. Its 4Matic+ four-wheel drive continually shifts power around but has a definite rear bias and, allied with all-wheel steering (a first in a 53 model), it demonstrates more urgency than its endlessly plush (and pixel-rich) cabin might otherwise suggest.
There’s certainly no bank of blank switches in here. Mind, it’s disarmingly easy to manoeuvre compared with the burly Black Series. The rear steer and an abundance of parking cameras make moving it around a doddle, yet as soon as you’re rolling, there’s evident nous to the more mechanical bits beneath.
It exhibits real tension in the ride, whichever of the multitudinous modes you’ve selected, and a pleasing snarl from the six-cylinder up front in its sportier settings.
The whooshes and hisses of turbocharging that are proudly absent in the vociferously atmo CLK bring welcome character to the progress you make in here. Although it will never match the gargling war cry of that venerable 6.2-litre V8, this CLE sounds good.
Its powertrain is largely free of lag too (gaps in the power delivery are papered over by a 22bhp mild-hybrid element), but the keener among us are still encouraged to wring out the revs. Just shift up slightly below the limiter in manual mode: it cuts in keenly.
Even though its headline accelerative benchmark betters that of the Black Series, the CLE 53 doesn’t feel as outrageously quick, its 58 fewer horses and 165 extra kilograms taking some of the blame.
I like its relative modesty, though: it’s not as outlandishly, unusably fast as some sports saloon rivals have become and you can at least feel like you’re exploring its performance and approaching its limits like in the more slapstick CLK.
This CLE represents a much more rounded package and can’t help feeling a bit staid in such company. But even a cursory scroll through its bewildering mix of modes unleashes something that can thrill, something that will provide depth as an ownership proposition.
It’s never going to imitate the slightly unhinged hot rods it shares those evocative three letters with, and it definitely prefers grip to slip, but its rear wheels can still scrabble naughtily on dank days. You can take it by the scruff on the right road.
A whole suite of AMG Dynamics stuff keeps the 4WD, rear steering and stability control systems in check through a range of ‘difficulty levels’ from Basic to Master.
Spec the optional £7500 Pro Performance Package (not present here) and you even get a higher, Black Series-matching 186mph top speed and a RWD-only drift mode, once you have loosened the electronic helpers to enable it.
But this AMG is an involving car without it, even if you do need to be laying on at least a little aggression to unleash its mischievous side.
It only ever moves under your duress, whereas the old CLK is unashamedly, belligerently itself and drags you along with its whims while keeping you fully versed on its intentions.
The CLE 53 makes you go looking for its own, cloaking them beneath a few more layers of luxury and awaiting your command to loosen its inhibitions.
But crucially, it still will. Just as those arches promised.