When Logan first drove the Mercedes-Benz CLE300, he didn’t quite fall in love with it, and Amber didn’t like the CLE she drove either. Normally, I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but in this case, it’s Mercedes. Luxury coupes and convertibles are Mercedes’ thing. Plus, Logan is nine feet tall, and Amber lives in New York City. Maybe the CLEs they drove were just the wrong cars for them. Surely I, a proper grand touring appreciator, just needed the right CLE and the right road trip, and I’d be singing the new tweener two-door’s praises until everyone started to get annoyed with it.
Incidentally, not too long ago, I found myself planning a trip to Savannah that had “Mercedes-Benz CLE” written all over it, and Mercedes had a 2026 CLE450 4Matic Cabriolet available for me to take. The AMG CLE53 version would have definitely been quicker and more fun in the corners (Logan liked that one a lot more), but I wasn’t going to see many corners, so the CLE450 Cabriolet sounded perfect. The trip included warm weather, at least eight hours of highway driving round-trip, and bumpy city streets. What car could be better suited to making that trip enjoyable than a six-cylinder Mercedes convertible that didn’t think it was an AMG?
I only got more optimistic when Logan reminded me he actually had driven the CLE450 Cabriolet, and he thought it was “practically perfect” and felt “like it was made for one purpose…grand touring.” Sadly, by the time I made it home, I had to respectfully disagree.
Full Disclosure: Mercedes-Benz wanted me to drive the 2026 CLE450 4Matic Cabriolet so badly, it painted one brown, put it in the Atlanta fleet, and when I emailed asking if they had any convertibles available for my road trip, Mercedes offered to ship the CLE to my door with a full tank of gas and let me keep it for a week. Also, dang, gas really is expensive when you’re driving a car that requires Premium.
Bigger than the ole C
After a few quick spins around town and with everything I’d need for the weekend loaded into a cargo area that ended up being far more spacious than I assumed when I first popped the lid, I was fully convinced Mercedes PR had delivered a perfectly spec’d convertible. At least in light of the kind of driving I’d be doing. It’s no naturally aspirated AMG V8, but the turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-6’s 375 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque provided plenty of passing power and just enough growl from the exhaust to keep things interesting. Oh, and the mild-hybrid system meant I was getting more than 30 mpg, which I appreciated, because the engine required premium.
I’m already on record as a fan of both Mercedes’ 9-speed automatic and its column shifter, and the CLE did nothing to change my opinions on either. I still maintain that column shifters are the best design for a car with a modern automatic, and no one does a column shifter better than Mercedes. As for the rest of the cabin, I don’t love it the same way I love the shift lever, but that’s also a high bar to clear. I wonder if Mercedes evolving and refining this design language over the last decade or so makes it feel too familiar to be truly exciting anymore.
You can also make up your own mind about how a car’s interior looks without driving it, but how things feel is a little more difficult. Having touched every part of this car that I could, I get the feeling the vast majority of prospective buyers’ complaints will have more to do with design decisions than material quality. Ideally, the lower half of the door card wouldn’t be bare plastic, but it’s so hard to notice while you’re driving, it was hard to get that mad. The cabin also felt significantly roomier than the last C-Class Cabriolet I drove, which is good, because the CLE that replaced it is even longer than the two-door E-Class it also replaced. I would be concerned if it didn’t feel bigger inside.
As stiff as it gets
In the canyons, that may not be ideal, but there aren’t many canyons to carve between Northeast Georgia and the spot on the coast where South Carolina and Georgia kiss. That’s a drive where you want space, and no matter which route you take, poor packaging would quickly get annoying. You also want a quiet ride and a cowl that doesn’t shake every time you hit an expansion joint, and Mercedes definitely delivered there, as well. I still remember driving a previous-generation Mustang GT convertible from LA to Palm Springs and hating how much I could feel the car flex, so it’s still something you have to worry about in some modern convertibles — just not in the CLE.
As I worked my way through a couple of podcasts and part of an audiobook (believe it or not, a non-Reacher novel this time), things were looking good for the CLE. Once I hit Savannah, though, the cracks began to show. The last car I drove in Savannah was also a convertible, but that one was a John Cooper Works Mini Cooper, so the CLE’s 14-inch-longer wheelbase and pricier luxury suspension were initially a huge relief. Until I drove around a little more and started to get annoyed.
Yes, the CLE was more comfortable than the sportiest new Mini you can buy, but the suspension didn’t soak up the bumps quite as well as I would have expected from a non-AMG Mercedes that started at $78,750, including destination, and carried an as-tested price of $91,345. It felt like the car needed a suspension setting more comfortable than Comfort. But was that fair? Aside from Savannah’s streets being exceptionally bumpy and uneven, the last Mercedes I drove was a Maybach GLS, and you can’t expect a non-Maybach to ride like a Maybach. Maybe Savannah’s streets simply had too much character for any car to offer a truly smooth ride.
Convertibles > non-convertibles
Asking for a convertible was definitely the right move, though. Tootling around Midtown and the historic district. Driving out to Tybee, doing a little karaoke, and then cruising back after dinner. Letting the hot air escape because it’s Georgia, and even in the spring, the sun makes cars hotter than the surface of the sun. Just a great decision all around. In fact, the CLE’s size meant I had no problem shoving two fully grown adults in the back seats without my friend Max or I having to scoot our seats up. I doubt any adult would be happy back there for more than an hour, but it never hurts when a two-door car has rear seats that won’t make an adult hate you if you force them to sit there for 20 minutes. Plus, a convertible makes entering said rear seats easier and far more dignified. Like I said, great call on the convertible.
It wasn’t until I was a couple hours into my drive home and really had some time to think (at least about something other than how hard it is to bring the energy you need for “Kerosene” when you can’t hear the guitars or feel the bass drum through the karaoke speakers) that I really started to sour on the CLE. I’d broken up the drive down with plenty of breaks, but my bed was waiting for me at home, and I was in a hurry to get back to it. Four or five hours on the highway should be no problem in a grand tourer, and yet, there I was starting to get uncomfortable.
By the time I got home, my back and butt hurt so bad, the fleet company could have called to tell me they’d be picking the car up at 4 a.m., and I would have happily ruined my sleep that night to hand over the keys. Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but you get the point. Was it possible my test car had been configured wrong? That was my theory until I went to build a better CLE and learned there was no more-comfortable suspension option. The adjustable suspension my test car had is the upgrade. There were no more comfortable seats, either. My car also had the upgraded seats. The only way to make the CLE450 Cabriolet more comfortable would have been to spec 19-inch wheels, which probably would have provided a smoother ride.
Curse of the long back
I’m just not convinced smaller wheels would change my mind about the seats. They’re simply too sporty for a non-AMG, particularly because this is the convertible we’re talking about, not the coupe. Mercedes dedicated a lot of time and resources to making the CLE’s chassis incredibly stiff, and the results are impressive. I just wish everything else about the car was softer. Especially since it isn’t especially quick. If you floor it from a stop, the official 4.2-second 0-to-60-mph time feels realistic, but punch it while you’re already rolling, and you don’t even have to worry about losing your socks. Let the CLE450 be what it was meant to be, Mercedes.
The thought did cross my mind that maybe Mercedes expected me to be softer than I am, and my butt’s built-in padding is definitely a bit more Colin Chapman-inspired than most Americans’. Except I check the German site, and German CLE buyers don’t get a comfort seat option, either. Their skinny little asses are stuck driving around in the same too-sporty seats that my skinny little ass was. The good news is, if you bring more of your own padding to the table than I do, you may find the seats more comfortable than I did, and if not, Mercedes should have a refresh coming soon enough. Either changing the seats or offering an optional Fancy Comfort Seat doesn’t feel like too ridiculous a request.
I mean, it’s not like I’m asking Mercedes to turn a three-row crossover into a sports car. I’m asking for a non-AMG Mercedes convertible to be comfortable enough that two four-to-five-hour drives over three days would feel like something I’d want to do again. The CLE450 Cabrio that I drove didn’t deliver that. I worry that even CLE buyers who took an extended test drive may be in for an unfortunate surprise the first time they take their comfy grand tourer on an actual road trip. Even if they had the option, not many people are going to spend three hours on the highway, just checking to see whether the initial comfort holds up after the two-hour mark.
One comfortable luxury experience, please
I’m sure plenty of people have driven a CLE and come to a different conclusion. Which is fine. I’ve already admitted I could use a juicier caboose, and that may have made the drive less comfortable than it was supposed to be. Then again, I also drove the car more than 500 miles over three days, and not everyone calling it super comfortable did. In fact, I’d bet a moderately irresponsible amount of money relative to my current net worth that those two things explain why we have different opinions. Because I checked with Logan, and you guessed it — he said he didn’t make it past the two-hour mark on the highway, either. Not that I can blame him. He lives in LA, and driving up in the canyons will always be more fun than sitting parked on the 405.
Maybe Mercedes ran the numbers and found it would be worse for business to make the CLE450 drive like the rolling couch I was hoping for. It’s possible. What it feels like, though, is that someone outside the core product development team insisted the CLE450 would be better as a cheaper CLE53, even though the CLE53 was supposed to be the cheaper version of the CLE63 that was originally never going to happen. The AMG is supposed to be the compromise, not the Benz.
If you don’t plan to road trip the CLE and drive too many winding roads to enjoy a true couch on wheels, maybe the tradeoff is worth it. Heck, maybe that makes the CLE450 Cabriolet a better daily driver for its customer base. Maybe the people who actually buy these cars don’t want a couch on wheels. But as a car, the 2026 Mercedes-Benz CLE450 Cabriolet would be better if it left the corners to anything with an AMG badge and doubled down on comfort.
