As you’d expect, the AMG CLE 53 cabriolet shares a powertrain, chassis and most things minus a metal roof with the Mercedes-AMG CLE 53 Coupe. Does chopping the top off affect performance or add a dollop of boulevardier brio?
To find out, we’ve driven it on the roads around Marbella in Spain at the international launch – and now extensively in the UK, too, as we sample a luxurious AMG CLE 53 4MATIC+ Night Edition Premium Plus.
At a glance
Pros: Strong performance, comfort, engaging in the right mode, soft-top style
Cons: Rear seats are occasional pews, digital overcomplication can stymie the fun
What’s new?
The folding soft-top roof is the main attraction here. The AMG CLE 53 gets the same body-in-white as the coupe, so it’s 58mm wider at the front and a further 75mm wider at the rear than a standard CLE. Those flared wheelarches make all the difference on the AMG coupe, and it’s no different here – the bodywork peppered with four exhausts and a purposeful diffuser. This is a cabriolet with some serious presence, despite the 53 (not 63) badge at the back.
Affalterbach engineers have added struts in the engine bay (above) and under the body to put some stiffness back into the chassis to cater for the lack of torsional rigidity inherent in any convertible. The roof itself takes 20 seconds to open and is fully electric. It can be opened at speeds of 60kmh (37mph) or below, so you won’t get caught short at the traffic lights if it starts raining. Predictably, those stiffening measures add weight and the cabriolet comes in around 110kg more than the coupe.
What are the specs?
The CLE 53 Cabriolet is powered by the same engine as the coupe, which is an upgraded version of the M256 3.0-litre inline six. Now called the M256M, it benefits from redesigned intakes, exhaust ports and other bits and marks a welcome return to the straight-six format in Mercedes’ product line-up. It’s like going back to the 1980s spec sheets!
Where it’s resolutely contemporary is the aspiration on offer: a turbocharger works in harmony with an electric compressor in pursuit of turbo lag elimination, as the AMG delivers 442bhp and 442lb ft of torque (the latter from 2200-5000rpm… remember that flat torque curve). The starter motor acts as the mild-hybrid part of the engine, and can provide an additional 23bhp of power boost and 151lb ft of torque.
Drive is channelled to all four wheels through a nine-speed automatic ‘box and Mercedes’ 4Matic all-wheel drive system. It’ll divert torque to where it’s needed most, maximising traction no matter the conditions. In spicier settings, such as ESP Sport, it’ll divert more power to the rear, and in Drift mode it’ll send all power to the back axle. Back in the real world, more sensible driving modes will decouple the front axle for efficiency’s sake.
AMG’s ride control does a similar thing but with damping, and changes the rebound and compression of each wheel independently, depending on the driving situation and what mode you’re in. It’s fiendishly complicated and we suspect many owners will just leave the car in its default Comfort or Sport settings.
This top-dog CLE also benefits from rear-wheel steer: here the rear wheels turn opposite to the fronts at speeds below 62mph to ‘shrink’ the length of the car. It’s only to a maximum angle of 2.5 degrees, but that’s enough to notice at lower speeds. Pass the 62mph mark, and they’ll turn the same way as the fronts to improve stability during high-speed lane changes, but to a smaller maximum angle of 0.7 degrees. It all works remarkably well and feels quite natural.
Aim the Mercedes-AMG CLE 53 Cabriolet at the horizon and you’ll get to 62mph from a standstill in 4.4 seconds – or 4.2sec if you’re using Race Start from the optional AMG Dynamic Plus package. Interestingly, the coupe does it in 4.2 as well, quashing any suggestion this is a lardier, loungier posing machine.
How does it drive?
The sheer amount of technology onboard the AMG CLE 53 means it’s chameleon-like to drive. In the more sensible modes, the AMG is quick but doesn’t feel that precise. The steering wheel is light and easy to handle in Comfort, while the suspension quietly soaks up most bumps in the road, despite the low-profile Michelin Pilot Sports on menacing matt black multi-spoke alloys; it handles the rough roads of Marbella and floats over the slick autovias en route to the mountains above the city when we first drive it in Spain.
Stay in Comfort mode, enable the Aircap wind deflector above the windscreen to divert turbulence away from the cabin (very effective), along with the warming Airscarf tickling your neck (good for hygge, three speeds of heating offered), and the CLE’s cruising appeal is undeniable. Unusually British weather in Marbella means co-author Curtis Moldrich (below) can’t have the top down too much when he first drives the car at the international launch, but he finds it relatively quiet with the roof up and warm with it down.
In these more conservative driving modes the engine purrs with a sophisticated straight six hum and feels full of torque, working lazily through the nine-speed gearbox and keeping things relaxed, only dropping down a cog when the ECU decides a lower ratio is a must.
An exit off the motorway takes us onto faster, more demanding roads – and once the fog clears we’re able to sample the other side of the AMG CLE 53’s split personality. Dial up Sport or Sport+ and you hear the revs rise, the sports exhaust baffles open to provide a fruitier soundtrack, you feel the steering firm up and ride stiffen. The CLE 53 transforms from a sunseeker into something altogether sleeker and sportier.
The inline six has more immediacy now, and the steering is heavier and more precise. That rear-wheel steering helps the AMG-ified CLE deftly sweep into line before bends and tighter hairpins – though we’d like more feedback from the front axle. Later, greasy tarmac and a newfound rear bias gives us our first moments of oversteery slip when provoked.
What about that extra 110kg of kerbweight we’re lugging around on the soft-top? In practice, the cabriolet’s tweaked chassis seems to swallow the deficit well. Body roll feels no worse than in the coupe and the acceleration on offer is indistinguishable, too. Make no mistake: this is an epically fast car. On the road at speed, the only time we noticed the extra ballast was under hard braking.
Now we’ve driven the CLE 53 soft-top extensively in the UK, we’ve found our preferred driver modes: Comfort is best, most of the time. Individual lets you toggle each parameter to your choice and if we’re in the mood for fun, I discovered engine in Race, dampers in Comfort and dynamics in Pro meant I could enjoy the sports exhaust and finger-flick my way through the gears. A lot of fun, even if average fuel consumption slumped to 22.4mpg (we average 31mpg during our week with the test car).
What’s the interior like?
This is a Mercedes-Benz in 2025, so you get a very busy, intricate cabin that’s robust and made of top-quality materials on the whole. Like the coupe, this CLE Cabriolet doesn’t really bother hiding its C-Class DNA, and uses the same 11.9-inch and 12.3-inch display pairing as the coupe. The infotainment system is bright, quick and easy to fathom. The centrally mounted screen tilts for some reason, too (presumably to shift reflections in bright sunshine with the roof down).
We’re not huge fans of modern Mercedes steering wheels, due to their fussy layout and plentiful capacitive buttons (we counted 19 haptic switches, buttons and dials on our test car’s wheel!), but those tiny-screened toggles remain a useful feature, allowing you to zip through different menus once you’ve got the hang of them. I found the carbonfibre- and suede-trimmed wheel a little too plump for my liking, but I did like the exquisite aluminium gear paddles behind.
Our test car benefits from a swish carbonfibre trim and grippy sports seats. The latter are pretty aggressive in their adaptive bolstering, but really do their job when you’re pushing on and I found them deeply supportive and comfy on a long haul. While the front seats are commodious and comfortable, the rear pair (above) are best left to kids; adults perch quite high and exposed to the elements and lankier passengers like myself will be cramped. It’s exacerbated by a tall transmission tunnel bisecting the floor. There are two Isofix attachments on the rear seats.
The cabin feels just as premium as the coupe’s, aside from a few gaps where the roof meets the rest of the car. Curtis was disappointed by these spaces revealing rather more of the linkages of the roof mechanism, and said it slightly spoiled the otherwise luxurious vibe. I noticed the piano black panel housing the Airscarf buttons and other minor controls was a little wobbly.
The luggage compartment (above) is accessed via a handle hidden in the three-pointed star on the bootlid. Surprisingly, it opens manually, to reveal a decent 375-litre boot – but remember that volume decreases when the hood is stowed, the container gobbling up around a hand’s-span of space to leave a narrow, pinched loadbay. You can, however, lower each rear seatback individually to provide a longer through-load area.
Before you buy (trims and rivals)
Cabriolets are like hen’s teeth nowadays, and the Mercedes-AMG CLE 53 Cabriolet is a big fish in a small pond. There’s very little at this price that can match Merc’s sport soft-top, but that doesn’t mean it’s cheap: prices start £77,075, but that increases to £82,825 for the Night Edition we tested in the UK, adding extras such as carbonfibre on the dash, a Burmester stereo and head-up display.
To put things in perspective, an entry-rung CLE 200 AMG Line Cabriolet starts at £54,495.
Verdict
On the surface, the CLE 53 AMG has the presence and aggression of those classic ’63-badged cars – but it’s an entirely different animal that doesn’t need to be tamed like AMGs past. Instead, it uses the latest tech from Affalterbach to make driving quickly as fun and painless as possible, yet major on refinement and sun-seeking.
It’s remarkably wide-ranging in character, switching between boulevardier or back-road plaything with ease. The CLE 53 is a car whose driving modes really do change the characteristics noticeably and the resulting Jekyll and Hyde persona suits this car. It’s a beautifully finished, highly desirable convertible that plays comfortable cruiser, back-road blaster, snug 2+2 and sunseeker with admirable panache. It takes all the best bits of some of our favourite Mercs from the back catalogue and stuffs them all into one deeply desirable, very multi-faceted package.
It feels like a Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet alternative for two-thirds of the price – and with a welcome ability to nip under the radar that a Porsche will always struggle to achieve.
