It’s fairly easy to get comfortable behind the wheel of the CLA Shooting Brake. The seats are excellent and have lots of adjustment which means most people should be able to find a good driving position.

While a few of the fixtures and fittings feel a little cheap for a car at this price point – such as the plastics on the air vents and around the stereo – in general there’s a premium feel to the cabin which is in keeping with the car’s premium nature.

In front of the driver you’ve got a fairly conventional arrangement; the speedo and rev counter flank a small screen which displays trip or navigation information.

We were slightly less enamoured with the screen for the infotainment system, though. It takes the form of a screen sitting proud of the dash, a little like a tablet computer but fixed to the car. It looks incongruous and a little cheap when compared to other manufacturers’ attempts, which are either integrated with the dash or slide away when the car is switched off. Both solutions provide a more cohesive solution.

As with the larger CLS, in the main Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake comfort levels are excellent. The platform has been tweaked slightly to cope with the extra weight over the rear axle, which has improved the ride quality over the normal CLA and added to the premium feel of the car. With that said, the ride can be quite fidgety at certain speeds, which means a lot of vibration makes its way into the cabin. Since we noticed this on Germany’s frankly brilliant roads, we suspect it won’t be great on our far poorer roads.

It’s very quiet, though – the CLA famously has extremely good aerodynamics, which means it doesn’t disturb the air as much as other cars and thus wind noise is minimized. There wasn’t much road noise on the cars we tried either, though the CLA 220 CDI diesel engine is more than a little noisy at times which is a bit of a shame considering how premium the rest of the car feels. We haven’t tried a petrol model yet, but suspect this would address the issue.

We found the seats excellent, being supportive and comfortable with a lot of adjustment. In the main this is a comfy car hampered by recalcitrant suspension damping.