Hannah Elliott Bloomberg News Published 2:38 p.m. UTC Aug 2, 2018 I must admit to feeling some apathy about driving the 2019 Mercedes-Benz CLS. After all, this is a simple refresh on a midsize mass-market luxury sedan, a segment notorious for offering safe, reliable, and relatively interchangeable vehicles to an upper-middle-class public. As expected, yes, the act of driving the CLS 450 around the horse farms of New Jersey was pleasant, placid, peaceful — you name it. Warmer than lukewarm and not quite forgettable. In a word: unobtrusive. But as for the car’s exterior and interior, including under the hood, I was surprised by some significant new features that should lend themselves to genuine delight for prospective buyers. The CLS line traces its history to 2003. It became Mercedes’s first foray into four-door “coupe” territory, a slight misnomer that’s taken hold with other brands courting consumers who want performance and space, like in BMW’s Gran Coupes.More than half of its buyers have been conquests from other brands. They are, on average, 11 years younger than the typical Mercedes buyer. “The formula for success in this industry is pretty simple: Attract younger customers to the brandand keep them for life,” Mercedes President and Chief Executive Officer Dietmar Exler said last week in Brooklyn. Key among the car’s surprise delights is that the CLS now comes standard with five seats, rather than four, and has as many as two 12.3-inch touchscreens. (One comes standard; if you choose to pay several hundred more… [Read full story]
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