Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake Made Official

Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake made its first appearance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed which commenced just a few days back. The Concept Fascination was unveiled at the 2008 Paris Motor Show and had received a lot of acclaim and following this was the unveiling of the Shooting Brake show car at the 2010 Beijing Motor show, looking at which Mercedes decided to finally bring it out to the markets.

The name Shooting Brake comes from the time when carriages were used to break in the wild horses so that they could be tamed and used for work. These carriages often suffered major damage. Such carriages that were used for shooting were called Shooting Brake or Shooting Breaks. 60s and 70s saw the motorized Shooting Brakes in England. These were two door coupé style with two-doors but with larger boot and tailgate.

The platform of the CLS Shooting Brake is the same as CLS Saloon, including the frameless door which has become a signature trademark of the series. The dimensions of the estate are 4956mm length, a width of 1881mm which is same as the saloon and the height of 1413mm which is 2mm lesser than the saloon. The wheelbase however remains the same at 2875mm. From inside, not many changes have been made except that there are new 3 abreast rear seats with foldable back rests; otherwise the interiors are almost same as the CLS Saloon.

The Europe version will have two petrol options and two diesel options. The petrol variants will be 3.5-litre V6 in CLS350 and a twin turbo 4.6-litre V8 in the CLS500. The former will be capable of delivering a power of 306bhp and the latter would be able to a408bhp. The CLS250 CDI engine would be 2.1-litre four-cylinder and the CLS350 CDI would be 3.0-litre V6. The estate will have standard 7-speed automatic transmission which is produced by Mercedes. The three modes of operations for this transmission will be eco, sport and manual. The other features will be fuel saving functions including automatic Stop/Start, brake energy recuperation etc.