2026 Mercedes CLA Previewed With Concept Car Looks

Mercedes-Benz has stripped away some of the camouflage and provided us with our best look at the 2026 CLA to date. The car takes design inspiration from a concept unveiled 12 months ago and will be offered in ICE and EV guises.

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The German marque made the odd decision to unveil this thinly disguised CLA at the 39th Festival d’Hyères in France, a festival for fashion, photography, and accessories. This explains the intriguing grey and red wrap applied to the exterior of the car and while Mercedes didn’t announce any details about the car, we already know quite a lot about the upcoming model.

Read: This Is Everything We Know About The 2026 Mercedes-Benz CLA

Visually, adopts a similar overall shape to its predecessors, retaining a sleek profile and a compact footprint. At the front, we can see the outline of a thoroughly overhauled grille with a shape inspired by the CLA Concept of last year. The overall shape of the headlights is also similar to the concept, but curiously, there’s no sign of the Three-Pointed Star daytime running lights incorporated within them. It doesn’t look like the full-width LED light bar has made it to production, either, unless it’s simply well hidden by the wrap.

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As with the first and second-generation CLA models, the doors have plenty of bold creases and design lines, including a prominent shoulder line running from the corner of the headlights through to the corner of the taillights. Speaking of the taillights, they are quite clearly inspired by the lights of the concept and include circular LED signatures. A small lip spoiler has also been fitted to the trunk.

Underpinning the new model is Mercedes-Benz’s flexible MMA platform. All combustion-powered models are expected to be four-cylinder offerings with hybrid assistance, while the EV should use an 800-volt electrical architecture that provides charging speeds of up to 250 kW. The electric model will also support bidirectional charging capabilities and support Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) functions. A high-performance AMG version of the EV is in the works and could have upwards of 500 hp.

Mercedes is expected to unveil the new CLA in full in the coming months before launching it as a 2026 model in the United States and other markets.

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