Some cars are built for mass appeal. Others are built for a very precise appeal, and perfectly comfortable with the idea that it’s limited. That’s the whole idea.
Nearly everyone can imagine themselves in a Toyota RAV4, for instance, which is why it finished 2024 as the third-best-selling vehicle in America.
The 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLE Coupe is a long, low-slung 2-door luxury car with a sporty vibe but something less than a performance car’s price.
Car design in 2025 favors the big, the tall, the practical, and the strong. Old-school cars are a statement in a country that buys more SUVs than any other kind of vehicle. Americans buy vehicles to take up space and to be able to do nearly everything. The big SUVs of today don’t feel particularly personalized, but that’s not the point. Multi-functional capability is the point.
Slicing through the traffic of all those comes the CLE. It’s not a track-tracing performance car posting stunning numbers for bragging rights (though Mercedes will certainly sell you one of those if that’s your fancy). Rather, it’s a luxurious automotive piece intentionally designed to carry just one or two people most of the time, and carry them in style.
In a week of testing, I found the 2025 CLE a singular thing. It’s not intended to evoke the same emotions most of the cars we test are designed to bring forth. It feels like a luxury watch in the age when we all check the time on our phones or by asking Alexa.
To buy one of these, you have to want precisely this. Most shoppers probably don’t. For those who do, it’s near perfect.
My tester was a CLE 300 4Matic Coupe in Starling Blue Metallic in Pinnacle trim with the AMG Line package, adding a sport-tuned suspension and brakes, 19-inch wheels, and brushed stainless steel pedals. It comes at an asking price of $65,800, including a $1,150 delivery fee.
I did not get to sample the equivalent Cabriolet, but I’m sure driving this car with the top down is an even more exclusive experience.
The Car Isn’t Small, But its Purpose Is
The CLE looks sporty, though I was never sure whether to call it a sports car. Its long hood and short deck proportions hint at a muscle car stance, but gentle arcs on every body panel keep it from being more than a hint. The look is appropriate, as we’ll discuss in a moment.
If it had four doors, we’d have to classify the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLE as midsize. Its wheelbase is longer than that of family cars like the Toyota Camry or Honda Accord. Yet, this is a car most at home with just one or two people inside. There are two rear seats, but not rear seats you’d want to put adults in for long.
With its big doors, a car that is essentially large enough for five but built for two says something. It invites its driver to take up some space.
That space is lovely. You can line the dashboard with expanses of fine wood or any of several metallic patterns like carbon fiber. The front seats are generous, though sculpted almost like sport seats. They’re heated even in the base model and are available with ventilation and massage functions. When you sit in the front seats, a small mechanical arm extends the seat belt into your reach – a concession to the age and lack of flexibility you may have reached to afford this, sure. But it also feels like an assistant handing you what you need. I had to resist the urge to thank it every time.
The 11.9-inch portrait-mounted touchscreen is canted slightly toward the driver.
You may love or ignore the trend toward ambient lighting in cars, but you can’t deny that Mercedes does it best. Nearly every seam in the cabin is traced in a thin line of color you can adjust to almost any hue. It makes the car feel 30% cooler at night.
I suggest you avoid red and light blue so you can see one little Easter egg — bump the heat up, and the lighting around the turbine-shaped air vents glows red for a moment. Bump it down, and it pulses blue.
This cabin explains what the word “enveloping” means. It feels sculpted for its driver and front passenger.
One minor complaint: If you opt for the heated steering wheel, it turns on with the heated seats. You can’t have one without the other.
A Sporty Cruiser, Not a Sports Car
The near-sports-car vibe of the body carries over to the driving experience.
The CLE 300 I tested has a turbocharged 4-cylinder engine mated to a 48-volt mild-hybrid system designed to provide a power boost at the start of the torque curve. The combination makes 255 horsepower — good for four cylinders.
If you want more, Mercedes also builds the CLE 450 with a turbo inline-6-cylinder engine and the same hybrid system, making 375 hp. In either case, power goes through a 9-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters you may never touch, as engineers have found precisely the correct shift points for this engine.
The term “4Matic” is Mercedes’ vernacular for all-wheel drive (AWD), so my tester had the added grip of power going to whichever wheels needed it most. I can’t help but wonder if a rear-wheel-drive (RWD) version of this car wouldn’t feel a hint more athletic.
The 4-cylinder heart gets the big coupe from 0-60 mph in 6.2 seconds. There are plenty of cars that will leap quicker. But 6.2 seconds is likely a few beats faster than most cars around you in traffic.
Likewise, handling feels poised but never so overprecise as to ask you to be on edge. I missed the rear-wheel steering that makes the E-Class feel smaller than it is. But if you haven’t experienced that, you’d never notice it was missing.
With the AMG Line package, the adaptive suspension uses steel springs – Mercedes doesn’t offer the air suspension setup of more expensive Benzes in this model. That keeps it comfortable but never punishing.
The CLE never feels so sporty that you want to challenge Porsches or even Camaros. But it lets you close any hole in traffic and accelerate out of any bad highway situation quickly.
In other words, it drives like it looks like it will drive – with a dash of sport.
A Reminder of the Personal Luxury Coupe
Automakers used to build something called a “personal luxury coupe.” These were 2-door cars on frames for 4-door cars, built with an emphasis on comfort, not speed. There’s nothing like them on the road today.
But in the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLE, you can almost see what they’d look like if the type had survived 1970s oil embargoes.
To want this car, you have to be comfortable taking up some space for yourself. You have to want 80% of a sports car sometimes. And you have to fork over Mercedes money.
But, when you do, you get something thoroughly enjoyable all for yourself that feels like it has little to prove. Driving it taught me something about the appeal of a nice timepiece.
