Mercedes-Benz accidentally spoiled the reveal of its small performance sedan, the new CLA 45 S, by uploading a photo of it early May to its online vehicle configurator. The image was first found by German publication Auto Bild, who discovered it while browsing the CLA 35 on Mercedes-Benz’ car configurator. When AMG Night Package was selected, there was a glitch in the system that showed a grey CLA-Class with red wheel calipers and an CLA 45 S badge instead of the yellow car that was in the body of the configurator. There’s no doubt about the vehicle being the CLA 45 S: larger wheels and quad exhausts round out the differences between the CLA 35 and the hot version. The image on the site has since been removed. In a conversation with Tobias Moers of AMG, Autoblog discovered the AMG CLA 45 S could make up to 420 horsepower, which is a lot for a small turbo-four to make, but with modern technology, we’re sure AMG has designed the danger out of it. The CLA 45 S will also feature a different transmission to handle all that power, with eight speeds instead of the seven used by the 35, which will only have around 387 horsepower. The 45-series vehicles are also expected to have a slightly different four-wheel-drive system with a drift mode. Now that the model has been leaked, it’s possible Mercedes-AMG will fully reveal the vehicle sooner than anticipated. The European-only hatchback will likely be revealed first, followed by the sedan for the rest of the
Origin: Mercedes-AMG leaked its own 2020 CLA 45 S via its online configurator