Mercedes-AMG CLE 53 review

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Performance package puts the BMW M4 in the hot CLE’s sights

Mercedes-Benz hasn’t had the easiest time navigating electrification, working out how much of it is appropriate and most notably how to apply it to AMGs without sacrificing engagement.

Amid a line-up that now consists mostly of very complicated plug-in hybrids, this mild-hybrid Mercedes-AMG CLE 53 is looking like the most ‘classic’ AMG, with a big engine up front, only mild hybridisation, and a wide body hiding a configurable four-wheel drive system. Being the 53, rather than a 63, it’s only an AMG-lite; but the wide arches and technical specification suggest otherwise.

Until the even more extreme, V8-powered CLE 63 arrives, this tops the CLE range. It has already impressed us in a long-term test, but we have never run the numbers on it. The arrival of a car fitted with the Pro Performance Package on Mercedes’ press fleet is a good opportunity to do so.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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Mercedes AMG CLE 53 review 2025 002 panning

The CLE has been on sale for a few years now, but to recap; it effectively reprises the formula of the old CLK coupé, in that it replaces the coupé and cabriolet versions of both the C-Class and the E-Class by mixing and matching components from both saloons.

With that said, the CLE is more C-Class than E-Class adjacent, being just shorter than the smaller saloon (4853mm versus 4927mm) and having the same dashboard. However, the C-Class was conceived to take only four-cylinder engines, so the CLE uses some of the E-Class’s front structure to accommodate longitudinal six-pots.

The old E 53 AMG shared its body with the standard E-Class Coupé, but this CLE 53 gets a proper wide body with wheels to match. The intricate rim design on our test car is no longer available with the Pro Performance Package, sadly. Its 295 rear tyres are wider than those on a BMW M4.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

The regular CLE is available with four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines and even a plug-in hybrid, as well as that straight six. Codenamed M 256M, it’s a development of the 3.0-litre straight six that has been appearing in Mercedes for a few years. It’s boosted in various ways: primarily by a twin-scroll turbo, with a 48V motor in the gearbox helping with start/stop duties and at low revs.

The CLE 53 has effectively the same engine but with an additional electric compressor that runs off the 48V system and builds boost at low revs while the exhaust gas turbo (which itself produces more boost) fills its lungs. This is a largely standard Merc engine, then, rather than a hand-built AMG-specific one.

The same is true for the gearbox. Mercedes talks in its literature about the MCT and TCT gearboxes. Both are its own nine-speed automatic, but the TCT has a conventional torque converter, while the MCT has a multi-plate start-up clutch. The latter tends to be used only in the 63 AMGs, so the CLE 53 has the standard torque-converter unit.

On the chassis side, the AMG 53 is the only CLE in the UK to get adaptive dampers and four-wheel steering. The steering has a speed-sensitive variable ratio, and fully variable 4Matic four-wheel drive is standard.

Where the AMG 53 and 43 used to use a standard body, this CLE 53 (just like the E 53) gets significantly wider arches: 58mm at the front and 75mm at the back. Of course, there are more aggressive bumpers and diffusers as well.

That’s taken one step further with our test car’s Pro Performance Package, which adds a spoiler lip on the bootlid, extra trim on the rear air vents, and additional underbody aero devices. For its £7500 price tag, it also adds a more rear-biased four-wheel-drive mode, a driver-selectable fully rear-wheel-drive mode, active engine mounts, bucket seats and additional carbonfibre interior trim.

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INTERIOR

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09 Mercedes AMG CLE 53 2024 review dash IV driving

As with electrification, the German premium brands have wrestled with the integration of digital tech into their interiors. All have embraced it, but often at the expense of appealing design and usability. 

Mercedes has arguably struck the best balance in its C-Class- and E-Class-based cars. There is, of course, a large centre screen but, sitting on the slope of the centre console, it seems better integrated than the more heavy-handed applications in BMWs and Audis. It leaves room for design flourishes elsewhere, like the jet-engine air vents and flowing trim strips, too.

Within the large central touchscreen, Mercedes has incorporated an AMG Performance menu that displays various forms of vehicle data, such as speed and g-force. There's also an on-screen IWC-branded watch that can be used as a race timer for track driving.
Sam Phillips
Staff Writer

The software itself works very well, despite the heavily curtailed button count. The touchscreen responds instantly and is logical to navigate. The home screen is mainly dedicated to the navigation system (which is very up-to-date and worth using over Google Maps or Waze) but contains permanent controls for the media and the climate control. Mercedes also has among the best voice control systems we’ve found.

Material quality around the cabin remains hit and miss. The leather is soft, the carbonfibre is convincing, and the laser-cut metal speaker grilles for the excellent Burmester sound system could do a decent job on a block of parmesan. All of this contrasts with the loose touchscreen bezel, the scratchy plastic on the lower dash, and the risibly cheap-feeling piece of plastic that makes up the cupholders and centre console for the rear seats, however. We also detected a slight buzz from the driver’s side door card or our test car.

The Pro Performance Package replaces the car’s wood trim with carbonfibre and adds a part-carbonfibre steering wheel, but most importantly replaces the standard seats with ‘AMG Performance seats’, which lower the driving position significantly, addressing one of our complaints with the standard car. These seats are quite firmly padded, but so are the standard ones. They are very widely adjustable, very supportive and comfortable, and a lot easier to get in and out of than BMW’s carbonfibre bucket seats.

There’s just one problem with them. If you make full use of the lower driving position available, you may have difficulty seeing the car’s instruments. With the steering column adjusted down to suit the position of the seat, several testers found that a significant portion of the top of the instrument cluster became obscured by the steering wheel. One would assume both seat options were in the product plan from the start, so the driver display ought to be positioned accordingly. That it evidently hasn’t been shows a lack of attention to the ergonomic basics unbefitting of a premium brand. 

Although you wouldn’t pick a two-door coupé if practicality was a priority, the CLE does reasonably well in that respect, so long as you avoid the plug-in hybrid CLE 300e. Shorter adults and children can just about sit in the cosy back seats, which can be folded down to expand an already generous boot that is equipped with various hooks and some underfloor space. 

Design-wise, the car offers a choice of two aesthetics. Night Edition cars have the usual lashings of carbonfibre and an Alcantara steering wheel, while the standard Premium version has a classier and more subdued aesthetic with more leather and wood trim. 

The CLE 53 Cabriolet offers the same luxurious driving environment peppered with sporting touches. Its new multi-layer fabric roof opens in just 20 seconds at road speeds of up to 37mph and operates silently, thanks to a new electric mechanism. With the roof down, there’s 285 litres of boot space, increasing to 375 litres when it’s closed, with the option to extend luggage capacity via a 60/40-split folding rear seat.

Either way, with the roof in place the cabin is snug and warm, the multi-layered fabric hood offering almost coupe-like refinement on the move. Drop the top and the effective wind deflectors and Airscarf system, which blows warm air on the necks of front seat occupants, make the CLE’s cabin a cosy and bluster-free environment.

 

 

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ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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Mercedes AMG CLE 53 review 2025 016 engine

For all its visual bravado, and far superior power-to-weight ratio than its key rivals (230bhp per tonne versus 186bhp per tonne for the Audi S5 and 212bhp per tonne for the BMW M440i), the CLE 53 proved only marginally quicker. Even up to 100mph, the CLE doesn’t pull out much of a lead – certainly not as much as you might expect. 

Where it does have a slight advantage is in-gear, as evidenced by the quicker 30-70mph time in fourth, and the ease with which it pulls in high gears from low revs. Mercedes’ mild-hybrid application of both a small motor in the gearbox and an electrically assisted turbocharger does appear to be very effective at giving this engine enormous flexibility. It could easily make do with fewer gears. The AMG turned out to be heavier on the proving ground scales than quoted, but so did the Audi; and they have fairly similar gearing, albeit spread over a different number of gears.

I prefer the CLE 53's smooth six-cylinder howl over the BMW M440i's, which becomes a bit reedy at the top end, and the M4's, which is very gruff throughout. It doesn't shout 443bhp, though.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

The CLE 53 is still a very fast car, of course. It is more cultured than violent, which suits it just fine. Mercedes’ performance-flavoured straight six sounds deeper and less stressed than Audi’s V6, somewhere between the ultra-smooth B58 straight six of the BMW M440i and its gravellier S58 relation in the M4. At idle, you have to look at the tacho to be able to tell whether the engine is running – it is near-silent. 

At maximum attack, the nine-speed torque converter can’t match the crispness of the fastest dual-clutch transmissions, and its responses to the paddles can be slightly delayed. In daily operation, though, it works together with the mild-hybrid system to give effortless, smooth progress. A conventional automatic really was the right choice here, although the ZF eight-speeder in BMWs shows that shift speed and refinement needn’t be enemies of each other. 

Braking performance in the dry from the four-piston calipers proved strong, with no notable fade and reassuring pedal feel. The brakes are nicely progressive in normal operation too, despite blending in some light regenerative braking for the mild-hybrid system. 

The CLE took 57.4m to stop from 70mph in the wet, however, which was notably longer than the Audi S5 (51.3m), despite wearing similarly performance-oriented tyres.

RIDE & HANDLING

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Mercedes AMG CLE 53 review 2025 017 front cornering

Even though the CLE 53 is only the sub-AMG, it has all the chassis hardware you would expect from a top-flight performance car in this class, with a fully variable four- wheel drive system, the wide body, variable-ratio four-wheel steering and adaptive dampers. 

And it feels like the genuine article, up to a point. As with a BMW M car, there is a huge amount of configurability in the drive modes, and we like how AMG lets you navigate these. You access the parameter matrix on the centre screen via the AMG shortcut button. In this menu, you can configure an individual mode, which can then be easily called up using the right satellite dial on the steering wheel.

Meanwhile, the right satellite control lets you quickly adjust two parameters of your choosing. In practice, your first few weeks with the car will be spent narrowing down which modes are useful. We tended to stick with Comfort mode for suspension on the road, because even in the softest mode the ride is taut and flat rather than particularly compliant, without appearing to run out of wheel travel on bumpy roads. 

There is no separate setting for the steering, however, with Mercedes opting instead to give you just a single flavour – one that has become quite characteristic for AMGs in recent years. It is a technically complex system, with both a variable-ratio rack and 2.5deg of rear steering. It’s a credit to the tuning work, then, that it requires no great amount of familiarisation from the driver. Despite there being less than two turns lock to lock, it feels relatively calm off-centre, gathering pace gradually. Even so, mapping the steering articulation and feedback onto so few rotations means they inevitably become compressed, the result of which is that feel and progression are slightly compromised. 

The final choice to make is for the car’s ‘AMG Dynamics’ electronic torque-vectoring system, with no fewer than four modes: Basic, Advanced, Pro and Master. Master is only enabled with the Pro Performance Package. This influences both the four-wheel drive system and the traction and stability control, but even in very slippery conditions the differences are very subtle – much more so than on BMW M cars, where 4WD mode is quite steady and 4WD Sport is much more rear-biased. Even in Master mode, it remains conservative: get on the throttle very hard out of a tight corner in the dry and there is a satisfying – if short – moment of yaw, whereas an M4 xDrive (or even an M440i) would launch itself into a full- blown powerslide. 

It’s when you engage drift mode that you realise this grip-and-go character is not solely a result of the torque distribution. Drift mode is also exclusive to the Pro Performance Package and is a slightly sensationalist name for rear-wheel-drive mode. Unlike on M cars, it’s a faff to engage and not something you can quickly toggle on before your favourite well-sighted left-hander. And, even with the front driveshafts out of action, traction remains incredibly strong, and the CLE 53 is much more likely to understeer than oversteer. The tyre selection undoubtedly plays a role here: with a 265-section at the front and a 295-section at the rear, they are much more aggressively staggered than on the BMW and Audi rivals. The 54:46 weight distribution is front-heavier than you might expect, but it is the same as on the M4 CS (albeit with 265kg more overall), and more balanced than on the Audi S5. 

Once you have eventually settled on your perfect drive mode, the sum total is that the CLE 53 is a very fast, confidence-inspiring and enjoyable car to flow down a country road, if not an outright exciting one. On a dry track, this translates to brutish competence for fast lapping. Smoky drifts are on the table but take some cajoling – so this is not quite the classic AMG. It’s on a wet handling circuit where the CLE most readily reveals its natural balance and the sophistication of its ESP Sport stability control mode. 

The CLE 53 Cabriolet, by all accounts, feels much the same, which is an impressive achievement. Removing the roof hasn’t unduly weakened the structure's rigidity, and while there's a smidge of detectable flex in the car’s structure it’s more like scuttle shimmy than full on shake. As a result, the Cabrio steers with pretty much the same accuracy and agility as the Coupe, although our car’s optional dynamic engine mounts also help here.

Comfort & isolation - 4 stars

The CLE 53’s seriousness as a full-fat performance car comes through in the ride quality. Even the softest mode allows a fair bit of head toss and bump-thump. Although the tyre sidewalls aren’t excessively thin, the ride can also feel slightly brittle over sharp intrusions. We also note that the alloy wheels are quite wide compared with the tyres, so the rim sits almost proud of the rubber, making them vulnerable to kerb damage. The road test car’s intricate alloys survived unscathed, but those on our long-term test car weren’t so lucky. 

While it doesn’t let you forget its intentions at lower speeds, we do rate the CLE quite highly as a long-distance express. Noise levels at 70mph are between a BMW M440i’s and a standard M4’s, and no match for the excellent Burmester sound system. The Performance seats give a classic GT driving position, with plenty of support, despite their firmness, and the 65-litre fuel tank ensures a useful cruising range.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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Mercedes AMG CLE 53 review 2025 001 front cornering

The CLE 53’s positioning is reflected in its price. Costing at least £75,660, it’s a fair bit dearer than a BMW M440i, but then that is a closer match for the £68,325 CLE 450. Given the additional power and hardware, the CLE 53 isn’t such a big step up, and still undercuts the BMW M4. 

At £7500, we find the Pro Performance Package too expensive, since the only worthwhile hardware change is the seats. The rest is cosmetic trim, and the sort of software that comes as standard on an M4 xDrive. 

With a modern turbo straight six, mild-hybrid assistance and nine gears, the CLE 53 has the potential to be reasonably economical. A 35.9mpg motorway economy gives it 500-plus miles of cruising range, but enthusiastic use of the throttle will see that number tumble quickly.

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LONG-TERM REPORTS

Read our full Mercedes-AMG CLE 53 long-term review here

Car performance in varying weather conditions

The CLE 53 AMG is a prodigious all-weather machine that never struggles for traction, yet you still have to respect it at all times, especially in Sport and Sport+ models that limit the involvement of the traction control system. Among the driving modes is a 'Slippery' mode, that's designed just for low-grip road conditions that keeps the car as stable as possible.

Presence of any noises, rattles, or disturbances that develop over time

In our time testing the CLE 53 AMG, there were none. The build quality is rock solid and this is a car as well built as it is well engineered. 

Comparison of real-world fuel efficiency to manufacturer claims

If you really push the car, you can end up with fuel economy approaching single digits. Which is no surprise in something so powerful. Yet drive it in a normal way and you can actually get close to and actually beat the official claimed figure, as the engine is so under-stressed at a steady load in motorway conditions.

Responsiveness and intuitiveness of the infotainment system

The level of technology can be quite bewildering in a modern Mercedes when you first get in it, and the CLE 53 AMG is no exception. However, the infotainment itself is easy to navigate once you know a few choice shortcuts. The fact that heater controls are on the screen as well is perhaps the most irritating thing, as there's always one extra button press or swipe of the screen than you were expecting.

Effectiveness and reliability of safety features

In our time with the CLE 53 AMG, there was no false activation of the automated driving features. Their lack of intrusion was welcome, and allows you to put trust in them being there in the background when needed.

Practicality of space and storage for regular use and trips

You'd hope for a car to be so long to be practical, yet you're still always surprised at just how much space there is when you see how sleek the body is. The boot is very deep and goes back a long way, and can easily swallow the likes of golf clubs. Access isn't the easiest into the back seats, but the amount of space is not an issue.

VERDICT

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Mercedes AMG CLE 53 review 2025 019 front static

With its wide body, chassis tech and power, the CLE 53 is clearly positioned above the BMW M440i, Audi S5 and Mercedes’ own C43; but it’s not as fast as an M4 or the upcoming Audi RS5 and CLE 63. For those who think that the performance of top-flight coupés has got out of hand, it would seem an appealing compromise of real-world performance, comfort, usability and value.

It’s a good niche to dive into and results in a car with plenty of performance and a good deal of grip and handling smarts. It manages its digital technology better than rivals, too.

The CLE 53 feels akin to a downscaled Bentley: big on torque and refinement, and the power and performance is a by-product of that.
Mark Tisshaw
Editor

The execution of its chassis set-up isn’t perfect and there are some interior quality niggles unbefitting of the price. Overall, though, the CLE 53 is a very effective fast road car with buckets of presence.

Moreover, while four-seat onvertibles may have fallen out of fashion, the CLE 53 Cabrio is a reminder of why such models can be such appealing driving machines. Given this car isn't an out-and-out high performance machine, its slighly softer focus suits the more laid-back charms of open air motoring. Especially when the sun is shining.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As a road tester, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews and comparison tests, while also managing the magazine’s Drives section. Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s in-depth instrumented road tests.

He loves cars that are fun and usable on the road – whether piston-powered or electric – or just cars that are very fit for purpose. When not in test cars, he drives an R53-generation Mini Cooper S.

James Disdale

James Disdale
Title: Special correspondent

James is a special correspondent for Autocar, which means he turns his hand to pretty much anything, including delivering first drive verdicts, gathering together group tests, formulating features and keeping Autocar.co.uk topped-up with the latest news and reviews. He also co-hosts the odd podcast and occasional video with Autocar’s esteemed Editor-at-large, Matt Prior.

For more than a decade and a half James has been writing about cars, in which time he has driven pretty much everything from humble hatchbacks to the highest of high performance machines. Having started his automotive career on, ahem, another weekly automotive magazine, he rose through the ranks and spent many years running that title’s road test desk. This was followed by a stint doing the same job for monthly title, evo, before starting a freelance career in 2019. The less said about his wilderness, post-university years selling mobile phones and insurance, the better.

Mark Tisshaw

mark-tisshaw-autocar
Title: Editor

Mark is a journalist with more than a decade of top-level experience in the automotive industry. He first joined Autocar in 2009, having previously worked in local newspapers. He has held several roles at Autocar, including news editor, deputy editor, digital editor and his current position of editor, one he has held since 2017.

From this position he oversees all of Autocar’s content across the print magazine, autocar.co.uk website, social media, video, and podcast channels, as well as our recent launch, Autocar Business. Mark regularly interviews the very top global executives in the automotive industry, telling their stories and holding them to account, meeting them at shows and events around the world.

Mark is a Car of the Year juror, a prestigious annual award that Autocar is one of the main sponsors of. He has made media appearances on the likes of the BBC, and contributed to titles including What Car?, Move Electric and Pistonheads, and has written a column for The Sun.