{"id":2160223,"date":"2026-09-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2160223"},"modified":"2026-09-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T21:00:00","slug":"is-the-2-3-tonne-671bhp-mercedes-amg-cla-45-a-hit-or-miss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2160223","title":{"rendered":"Is the 2.3-tonne, 671bhp Mercedes-AMG CLA 45 a hit or miss?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jack Rix: \u201cThe seats\u2019ll rumble like you\u2019ve had a particularly spicy jalfrezi\u201d<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m a big fan of the AMG CLA 45<\/a> \u2013 a car that stretched its position as an entry-level AMG to bursting point with its certified insane four pot engine.<\/p>\n

This new one is electric, granted, but Mercedes hasn\u2019t ignored its past, it\u2019s sampled it \u2013 pumping the old four cylinder thrash through the speakers and making the seats rumble, like you\u2019ve had a particularly spicy jalfrezi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It also has 671bhp, which is a [gets calculator out] 62 per cent increase in power, over a car that was already overpowered. Do I think souped-up EVs make sense? Not really. Do I want to give this one a go? I do.<\/p>\n

Ollie Kew: \u201cIt’s now an extinction-level event for your driveway\u201d<\/h3>\n

Jack’s forgotten the first rule of EV Club: it\u2019s gained all that power because it\u2019s now an extinction-level event for your driveway. AMG\u2019s smallest saloon is 2.3 tonnes, because it needed a bigger battery than a normal CLA to offset how quickly it chomps through charge at full chat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The second rule is that you never buy the fastest EV in the line-up. Because all EVs are quick, but the many motor uber-duper version just hoses through its battery quicker. Yes, the boggo CLA is an efficiency champ, but will owners genuinely be deploying Drift Mode often enough to make the AMG\u2019s price premium count?<\/p>\n

You turn if you want to. I\u2019m off to see how much 6.2-litre V8 C63 I can get for under \u00a330k…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Rix: \u201cThe seats\u2019ll rumble like you\u2019ve had a particularly spicy jalfrezi\u201d I\u2019m a big fan of the AMG CLA 45 \u2013 a car that stretched its position as an entry-level AMG to bursting point with its certified insane four pot engine. This new one is electric, granted, but Mercedes hasn\u2019t ignored its past, it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2160223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2160223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2160223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2160223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2160223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}