Video: Chris Harris Reviews the Mercedes-Benz CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake

First, there was the CLS: a car with four doors and four seats that claimed its distinctive styling and rakish glasshouse made it a four-door coupe and not a regular saloon.
Well, no matter what they called it, the CLS brought Mercedes-Benz a nice profit thanks to its sales success and actually launched a brand-new niche, forcing Audi and BMW to follow suit with the A7 Sportback and the Gran Coupe respectively.
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Mercedes

That Mercedes of yours is not some fuel-saving, spendthrift, racing-striped go-cart you're driving here. It consists of sumptuous, high-performance Mercedes parts arranged in a manner of technological mastery in order to deliver a driving experience that is second to none. What you're driving is the confluence of advanced engineering and custom Mercedes Parts compiled into the very definition of luxury.

So tell me, can you explain the sullying layer of dirt and grime so thick that you see nothing but darkness in the rearview mirror? Can you tell my why the magnificent black and chrome luster sparkles in the afternoon sun about as well as a tortoise shell? My goodness, are those door-dings I see on the paintjob?

Sit down, sir. It's time we had a little chat. It's about time I let you in on a growing epidemic that is rocking the very foundations of our beloved Mercedes vehicles: car care ineptitude. It has become all-too-common a problem among Mercedes enthusiasts, as well as all luxury car owners in general. This is puzzling, to say the least, since taking proper care of all those fine Mercedes parts is much easier than one might believe.

Personally, I like to think of owning a Mercedes as analogous to having a pet. Owning one brings you satisfaction and contentment. It adds an extra jig to your step and makes you feel proud that wherever you go, whatever you do, your loyal pet is there accompanying you.

On one hand, you can treat it with the utmost care, feeding it the best food, bathing it regularly, and training it to obey your commands. And in the end, your pet will reward you with years of problem-free service and devotion.

On the other hand, you can neglect it and take it for granted. Then some years down the line, the embittered and lackluster piece of machinery that was once a joy to own will ultimately fill you with regret and self-consciousness. The once formidable mass of custom Mercedes parts that comprised your luxury vehicle simply ceases to be luxurious, and all that remains is a dingy, shell of a vehicle that sputters down the highway collecting dust.

Welcome to Mercedes car care 101. Contained herein is the true Mercedes enthusiast's guide to taking care of not just Mercedes vehicles, but all luxury vehicles in general, making sure that every last inch of those custom Mercedes parts stays in pristine - and lasting - condition.

Wash Me

Every so often, some purported jokester might leave some finger trails in the layer of accumulating dirt on your car, as if to mock your lack of cleanliness with a personal decoration.

Do us all a favor and give this person a piece of your mind, both because it's an old and unoriginal joke that isn't even funny anymore, and also because the half-hearted work of art is actually dragging dirt particles across the precious Mercedes parts that compose the exterior of your car, causing minor scratches. Yet don't be too quick to hand out the blame, as the weak attempt at humor could have been easily avoided if you were prone to regular washes.

For those who are proud enough of their fine luxury vehicles such that they regularly wash and upkeep the appearance of their cars, I salute you. On the other hand, if you're the type that skips the wash and instead waits for a rainy day, or looks for the parking spot next to an errant sprinkler head, please sit down, my friend. We need to have a little talk.

Yes, washing your car is cumbersome. Yes, it can be annoying at times. Yes, it's frustrating when you polish every inch of those custom chrome Mercedes parts to a high shine, only to have it ruined minutes later when driving through a decent-sized puddle in the middle of the street. But trust me when I tell you that the consequences of neglecting your vehicle's appearance can be far worse than having to go through the process of washing regularly.

Allow me to regale you with a personal experience that has changed my car care habits forever...

I once had the privilege of owning a 1999 Mercedes C43 AMG, fully customized and garnished with all the latest Mercedes parts that earned it an AMG badge. The white paintjob deceptively enshrouded 8 cylinders of glorious muscle under the hood, and the blue on black interior was the most polished and stylish interior I have ever seen in any vehicle, even to this day.

It was my first luxury car, and sure enough, I knew nothing of taking proper care of it. A layer of dust would accumulate on the paintjob, leading onlookers to believe that its color was more pepper than salt. A thick layer of brake dust gathered on the custom alloy AMG wheels, and who knew what putrid dregs festered deep in the floor mats.

Even after an extensive detail, when compared to another similar vehicle, the once luminous sparkle of glorious Mercedes parts appeared tainted and bland. The paintjob had noticeably faded, and the wheels had acquired a dark tint due to brake dust stains. My formerly glitzy, high performance machine was now dull and ordinary. And really, why invest in a luxury vehicle in the first place if it ends up looking stale?

Accessorize!

Naturally, those who are consistent with washing, detailing, and maintaining the overall appearance of their Mercedes need not apply. Yet for those who move at a more hectic pace, or perhaps simply just aren't aware, a number of measures can be taken in order to make upkeep of your Mercedes parts much easier.

Accessories such as floor mats, car covers, and other useful Mercedes parts can go a long way in both enhancing and preserving the appearance of your vehicle, and with a number of custom aftermarket options available, you're sure to find a vast selection of quality Mercedes parts that complement your vehicle perfectly and don't look cheap or tacked on.

Additionally, while I certainly hope it's just my imagination, there may be some out there who may not take proper or regular care of their Mercedes vehicle. Well, though we may not see eye-to-eye, such indiscretions can be both forgiven and remedied. In addition to aftermarket Mercedes parts that can help to preserve and protect the appearance of your vehicle, there are also numerous aftermarket Mercedes parts available that can restore your vehicle to as close to brand new as possible.

The following are a few examples of simple, inexpensive Mercedes parts that can do wonders to either protect or restore your vehicle.

Floor Mats:

Yes, floor mats. I do realize that of all the possible Mercedes parts I could recommend floors seem a bit of a puzzling choice. But let's think about this for a moment. Essentially, everything that gathers on the bottoms of your shoes is tracked onto your floor mats. Wherever you go, wherever you step, as days turn into weeks turn into months turn into years, those deceptively simple Mercedes floor mats are soaking up all the muck and dirt from each time you enter your vehicle. In the meantime, while you may be meticulous in taking care of all the interior Mercedes parts of your vehicle, there's always the floor mats lying there, like the ketchup stain on your white shirt.

Floor Mats tend to be one of the most neglected and overlooked Mercedes parts in your vehicle. Particularly if they come in darker colors, dirt, grime, and anything else that comes into contact with your feet finds its way into those comfy Mercedes floor mats, and even after successive vacuuming jobs or cleanings, they still won't be completely clean.

Fortunately, Mercedes floor mats are also one of the most easily replaced Mercedes parts in your vehicle. Aside from factory replacements that are available either direct from the manufacturer or most Mercedes parts outlets, a number of aftermarket Mercedes floor mats are custom fitted for your vehicle, and will do the job just as well, and at a fraction of the cost of factory ones.

Though probably the wisest investment you can make in Mercedes floor mats is to purchase a set of rubber or all-weather ones that are impermeable to liquids and much easier to clean. In addition, a set of custom rubber Mercedes floor mats gives your vehicle a sportier and more rugged style, as many with sleek grooves and designs are available.

Car Cover:

While I could produce a rather lengthy list of parts, accessories, washing materials, and replacement items, there really isn't much that I could say that you wouldn't already know. Besides, I think I've lectured you enough about washing your car regularly.

Instead, what I will suggest is one of the simplest, inexpensive, and forgotten accessories available that can go a long way in preserving the condition of your vehicle - Mercedes car covers. It may be hard to believe, but a simple layer of fabric is all that is needed to preserve the exterior and interior Mercedes parts to help maintain a lasting appearance through the years.

Extended wear and deterioration due to sun and inclement weather are the most obvious potentially damaging factors. When it comes to those really hot days, Mercedes car covers protect the paintjob and all your interior Mercedes parts from fading and cracking. And yes, even exterior Mercedes parts can fade, crack, and deteriorate, particularly if one does not pay heed to regular washing and waxing.

Mercedes-Benz Recalls 2012 CLS550 Because Hood May Open While Driving

A small number of 2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS550 and CLS550 4Matic are being recalled in the United States because the engine hood could open while driving.

In a filing to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the German automaker said that the recall affects 23 examples of the aforementioned models built from December 01, 2011, through December 13, 2011.

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Brabus Tunes New Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake in Both Regular and AMG Trims

It's only been three days since Mercedes-Benz began European deliveries of its spanking-new CLS Shooting Brake (on October 6, 2012), yet Brabus has already announced the launch of its first aftermarket enhancements for the stylish estate model.

The initial program includes a variety of cosmetic and performance upgrades for both the standard models and the flagship AMG variant.

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Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake Priced from £49,360 OTR in the UK

Britain is next in line to learn how much the new CLS Shooting Brake model will cost when Mercedes-Benz's dealers begin accepting orders in mid-September and before deliveries commence in November.

In the UK, the station wagon version of the CLS will be available with three different engine variants including the diesel-powered 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY and 350 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, and a petrol flagship, the CLS 63 AMG.

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Mercedes-Benz Puts a Price Tag on New CLS Shooting Brake in Europe, Begins Taking Orders

While deliveries will not begin until October 6, 2012, Mercedes-Benz has released pricing for the European range of the new CLS Shooting Brake series, which is available to order with immediate effect.

In Mercedes-Benz' home market of Germany, the sleek estate model starts at €61,761 (US$75,850) for the CLS 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY with a 201hp (204PS) four-cylinder diesel engine rising up to €117,512.50 (US$144,320) for the flagship CLS 63 AMG fitted with a 518hp (525PS) 5.5-liter bi-turbo V8.

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New Mercedes-Benz CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake Officially Revealed

It took Mercedes-Benz a little over a week after the official, online debut of the new CLS Shooting Brake and the sneak exposure of the AMG variant through a teaser video to finally announce details on the flagship model.

Like its saloon counterpart, the new CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake is powered by a 5.5-litre V8 biturbo engine that makes 518hp (525PS) at 5,250 rpm and 516 lb-ft (700Nm) from 1,750 to 5,250 rpm in regular guise, for a zero to 100km/h (62mph) acceleration time of 4.4 seconds.

Mercedes-Benz also offers the Performance Package that comes standard on the time-limited 'Edition 1' model and which boost output to 550hp (557PS) and 590 lb-ft (800Nm) respectively reducing the 0-100km/h (62mph) sprint by 0.1 seconds to 4.3 seconds.

Both the regular and the 'Edition 1' variants have an electronically limited top speed of 250 km/h (155mph). A combined fuel consumption of 10.1 lt/100km (23.3mpg US or 28.0mpg UK) with CO2 emissions of 235 g/km is also identical for both power units.

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Mercedes-Benz Inadvertently (?) Reveals CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake in Video!

There's no way of knowing if Mercedes-Benz planned to show the CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake together with the rest of the stylish estate's range, but regardless of its intentions, a careful look at one of the promo videos revealed that what we were looking at wasn’t one of the regular models but the flagship AMG.

There's nothing official yet on the car from the Stuttgart-based automaker, but we do know for a fact that the CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake will share its mechanical hardware with the saloon model.

This means power will come from a 5.5-liter bi-turbocharged V8 producing 518hp (525PS) at 5,250 rpm and 516 lb-ft (700Nm) from 1,750 to 5,250 rpm in standard trim with an optional Performance Package boosting these numbers to 550hp (557PS) and 590 lb-ft (800Nm) respectively.

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New Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake: All You Need to Know Plus 86 Photos and Video Footage

It took Mercedes-Benz a little over two years to turn the Shooting Break Concept from the 2010 Beijing Auto Show into the production CLS Shooting Brake (that's no typo, the German automaker changed the name in the process) you first saw in a set of leaked pictures earlier today and in much more detail now.

So what exactly is the CLS Shooting Brake? Well, if you ask the brand with the star, it will tell you that it's "quite clearly a coupé, but with five doors and a roof which continues through to the rear."

If you're having a problem comprehending Mercedes' description of the Shooting Brake, you're probably not alone.

To put it simply, it's an estate version of the CLS with a heavily arched roof that digs into the load area reducing space but at the same time, makes the car look far more elegant and sporty than let's say, the E-Class Wagon.

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New Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake Hits the Web [40 Photos]

Photos of the second addition to the Mercedes-Benz CLS family, the new Shooting Brake estate model, were leaked onto the web today ahead of the car's official unveiling at the 2012 Paris Motor Show.

The station wagon's sleek appearance will come to no surprise to those following the news, not only because the CLS Shooting Brake is based on the 2010 concept model of the same name, but also due to the fact that over past few months, we've caught countless spy shots of the production prototypes while testing in Europe.

The German language edition of Autoblog.com that posted these pictures, says that the CLS Shooting Brake will launch with an initial lineup of four models.

These include two diesels, the CLS 250 CDI with a 2.1-liter four-cylinder turbo rated at 201hp (204PS) and the CLS 350 CDI powered by a 3.0-liter V6 delivering 261hp (265PS), and two petrol models, the CLS 350 with a 302hp (306PS) 3.5-liter V6 and the CLS 500 sporting a 4.7-liter V8 turbo producing 402hp (408PS).

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German Special Customs Cooks Up a 740hp Mercedes-Benz CLS 63 AMG

Regardless of how much power Mercedes-Benz's AMG performance division gifts its models, there will always be customers wanting more horses under the hood and a tuner willing to supply the need.

Like German Special Customs (GSC), which has introduced a new performance and styling package for the latest Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG.

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Spied: Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake Shows Some Skin to the Camera

It should not be long before Mercedes-Benz whisks the covers off the new addition to its CLS range, the more practical Shooting Brake variant, but for now, das Germans are wrapping up the test phase with some lightly camouflaged prototypes.

The car that hopes to formulate an estate sub-segment in the premium four-door coupe category is based on Mercedes-Benz's 2010 Shooting Break concept.

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Mercedes-Benz Touts the Safety of its Vehicles in New 'Amy' Spot

There was a time when for most people, automobile safety was synonymous with Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, with both brands heavily promoting this aspect of their vehicles in their advertisements.

As the years passed by, the mainstream automotive industry as a whole made safety a number one priority for their vehicles and gradually all carmakers began showing similar commercials, until of course marketing teams pushed the focus elsewhere.

Now, Mercedes-Benz wants to remind consumers about the safety credentials of its cars with a new spot called Amy, named after a dog that made it out alive along with the…human passengers from a real car wreck involving a CLS sports saloon that occurred last September.

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Mercedes-Benz Outlines Future Plans, Says Next S-Class with Have Six Derivatives

After posting new records for vehicle sales, revenue and earnings in 2011 and with 2012 off to a good start as the company is expected to report its best sales ever in a first quarter, Mercedes-Benz has every reason to be optimistic about the future, despite some hiccups such as the axing of the Maybach brand.

During the opening ceremony of a new plant in Kecskemét, Hungary, Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, outlined the company’s 2020 growth strategy.

Zetsche said that the Mercedes-Benz cars division intends to conquer the number one position in the premium segment not only in terms of brand, products and profitability, but also of vehicle sales.

Overall, worldwide car sales are forecasted to increase from 60 million units in 2011 to 100 million units in 2020. According to Zetsche, Mercedes-Benz's medium-term target target is to lift sales from 1,279,100 in 2011, to more than 1.5 million vehicles in 2014 and more than 1.6 million in 2015.

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Spied: New Mercedes-Benz CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake is Ready for Production

From the moment Mercedes-Benz announced plans to produce the handsome looking CLS Shooting Brake Concept shown back in 2010, we knew that the firm's AMG performance arm would ready its own version.

With the presentation of the regular CLS Shooting Brake looming as Mercedes itself has confirmed that it will introduce the car sometime in 2012, AMG is also finishing up the development of the performance model that we will come to know as the CLS 63 AMG.

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Cadillac CTS-V Wagon gets Strapped to the Dyno, Results Compared with CLS 63 AMG

The Corvette may be the quintessential American sports car, but it's not the only one to challenge established European brands.

Over the past few years, GM's Cadillac division has also churned out some pretty interesting proposals targeting Germany's finest, namely the products made by Audi Quattro GmbH, BMW M and Mercedes-Benz AMG.

The CTS-V in all three body styles is one them. A 6.2-liter V8 engine aided by an Eaton supercharger helps the CTS-V produce 556-horses and 551 lb-ft (746.2 Nm) of torque, matching or even beating its German opponents.

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Spy Shots: 2013 Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Break Shows up in a New Shade

The second generation of the CLS sports sedan will soon have an equally, if not more interesting sibling called the Shooting Brake.

This is not the first time we've snagged the sleek-looking estate model as our spies have captured both photos and a video of prototypes while testing in Europe, the only difference being now the burgundy shade of its lightly camouflaged body.

The CLS Shooting Brake will be less roomy than its E-Class Estate sibling, but at the same time offer a larger boot and increased practicality over the CLS sedan while retaining the latter's elegant lines.

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