2024 Mercedes Benz CLE 300 4Matic Coupe
Price As Tested: $72,270 CAD
Colour: Graphite Grey Metallic
The term “unicorn” is rather loosely applied in the world of cars. Some define it as a car you never see but would buy if you could. Others reserve the term for extremely low production vehicles sold only to the wealthy who never drive them and thus, we never see them. I’ve typically floated somewhere between the two definitions but driving the 2024 Mercedes CLE 300 Coupe has compelled me to adjust my definition. A unicorn can also be a regular car that is so anachronistic in the North American car market that while you could go buy it at any moment nobody ever does and as a result you never see them in the wild. Such is the case with the CLE 300. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen one in person, and it may well be the last.
The CLE 300 is a curious thing. I’m not sure I was even paying attention when I booked the car several months ago. I just wanted to drive a coupe from Europe as my access to them is a little limited. Imagine my surprise then when I went to pick it up and was confronted with a properly beautiful sporty looking coupe. I was immediately taken aback by how lovely this thing is. Whether sports coupes are your thing or not doesn’t matter as I couldn’t find anyone during my time with the car who had a negative thing to say about how it looks. This thing is a figurative and literal head turner. I’ve mentioned before that my barometer for what makes a car cool is how much attention it elicits from the teenagers at my kids’ high school. If those kids with their Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts addled brains stop what they’re doing to take in a car, you know it’s special. The CLE 300 was something of a showstopper in this regard. I doubt most of these kids even knew what car I was driving but they all clocked it hard. That’s all this fat old man needed to know to understand that the CLE has something very rare in a vehicle – presence.
I must make clear that the CLE 300 is nothing spectacular in the world of the three-pointed star. It’s a step above the CLA but otherwise it’s just a 2-door daily. While it’s expensive for what it is, it’s by no means a particularly expensive car from Merecedes either. Normally when you look at cars on the lower end of the range of from the likes of Mercedes or BMW you do so from the top of your nose looking down. The CLE is different. It’s genuinely special. This is owed exclusively to how it looks. It has nothing to do with performance as you can get much more for less elsewhere. You can also get nicer interiors with infotainment and tech that makes sense and doesn’t irritate you trying to turn the volume up and down. No, the magic of the CLE 300 is all about those looks. It possesses true beauty, and this is so very special it must be cherished.
Beauty alone doesn’t make the CLE 300 a unicorn. Exclusivity and rarity are equally important as well. So enamored are we with the cult that is SUV ownership that most of us (likely all of us) would pass over something like the CLE for it’s overweight and disappointingly proportioned sibling the GLC Coupe. As a result, you never see the CLE in the real world. I will come across CLA’s from time to time but this much lovelier and far more special example is so rare I find my heart breaking at the thought that I might never find myself in its presence again. A car so singular and special makes you feel things. It’s not ego. I would never be so vulgar. Instead it made me feel special and unique. It made me feel like it looks. It shared it’s superpower with me. Once you’ve tasted such a thing, you’ll spend the rest of your life craving more of it.
I am now left with a hole in my automotive heart. Prett soon Mercedes-Benz won’t even make things like the CLE 300 Coupe anymore. If they do, they certainly won’t sell them here because we simply refuse to buy them. Our ignorance is robbing future generations of items of true beauty and this is a shame. Those of you who have read this entire review and think I’ve lost my mind over some hum drum Euro Coupe wanna sports car will likely get up for work tomorrow and hop into your horrid SUV box comforted by your ignorance. You’ll never know what you’re missing with your short sighted, band wagon riding purchasing decisions. I on the other hand, will maintain my love for this car until it’s taken from us forever. When it dies, the specialness of it will die with it. While that will be a shame at least I’ll always have my time with it and nobody, not consumer or carmaker, can take that from me.
