Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake review And the cabin is just so grand, all shiny veneers, sumptuous hides and ruler-straight stitching. Even the instruments have creamy back cards made almost clotted by the ambient interior lighting. The seats are big, comfy and just about supportive enough, the switchgear is superb and the steering-column gear selector is augmented with discreet paddles behind the rim. The options list could pauper even a Premier League footballer, the silliest being the £4,030 designo American cherry wood flooring in the boot, the most sensible being the £1,150 AirMatic semi-active air suspension. You'd be stretching to cram more than four adults in a CLS Shooting Brake, however. The rear bench is comfortable and has surprising amounts of head and leg room, but the cant rail will clip your head as you climb in and the middle seat is cramped at best. Shooting brake? We all remember Princess Anne's Reliant Scimitar GTE if only for the speeding tickets. Then there was the Lancia HPE, Volvo 1800ES and the Jaguar Lynx Eventer. And before you all get on the blower, either "brake" or "break" is correct. The term originally comes from a carriage to which you'd strap a recalcitrant horse to break it in. Taken up by the coachbuilding industry, there were ugly wood-panelled shooting brakes built on Bentley chassis to carry the guns to the stances, as well as more pedestrian Albion shooting brakes to take the beaters. As for where the line is between shooting brake and station wagon, who knows? Last year Ian Callum, Jaguar's chief designer, told me shooting brakes were the happening thing in automotive design and he had a design in waiting. Some estates have moved in that direction, such as Volvo's V60, and Ferrari really tried with last year's FF. At Frankfurt in 2001 Audi showed us an A8-based shooting brake and in Tokyo in 2005 another based on the TT, yet it has bottled both models. Not everyone at Mercedes-Benz is convinced this car will be a flier either. Those Madison Avenue types at Mercedes' New York HQ think it's a gussied-up estate and won't import it. However, American tourists mobbed the cars at the launch in Florence, Italy and seemed to think it would be a sure-fire seller, much more so than the heavy and ugly R-class, which was aimed at the same demographic. It's going to take a Max Hoffman-type character to persuade Mercedes - Hoffman was a mercurial Austrian who worked in New York as an importer of European cars and persuaded Mercedes to make the 300SL, BMW the 2002, Alfa the Giulietta Spider and Porsche the 356 Speedster. When the CLS Shooting Brake comes to the UK in November there will be two diesel and one high-performance AMG petrol version, priced from £49,360 to £83,030 (a premium of £1,785 for the two diesels and £1,150 for the AMG). You should forget the cheapest and most expensive models, though; the 201bhp, 2.1-litre 250 CDI is economical and emits just 139g/km of CO², but it struggles with the car's mass and is growly and intrusive, while the 549bhp AMG version is ludicrously powerful, but dipsomaniac, emitting CO² at 235g/km and making you look like a mud-wrestling impresario. The best balance of economy, range and price is the middle version, a 261bhp 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel priced from £53,000 with a 155mph top speed, 0-62mph in 6.6sec and 47.1mpg on the Combined cycle. CO² emissions of 161g/km do, however, leave it just outside the 10 per cent company car write-down tax threshold so you'll need to be extraordinarily nice to the fleet manager. It's worth it though, for this is a smooth, refined engine with no shortage of get-up-and-go. Merc's own seven-speed automatic is the only transmission option (the AMG gets a wet clutch instead of a torque converter) but it's a good one. The electronics are seldom stuck for a ratio, changes are pleasantly smooth and the discreet paddles allow you to balance the car into the corners. Ah yes, corners. Despite the adoption of aluminium, frame-less doors to save weight, this is still a big, heavy car (we're talking 16ft 3in long and nearly two tons) and at first it feels like it. You have to use the inertia, carry speed and balance the nose on the throttle and brakes to make quick, undemonstrative progress. Drive it like a getaway car and it gets squirrely, with unpleasant amounts of roll and an aggressive and noisy negotiation of bumps. On conventional wishbone-front and an air-suspended multi-link rear end, the low-speed ride is on the firm side, too, but the semi-active air suspension option sorts out that problem. Driven correctly, however, this is a surprisingly precise machine. The electronically assisted steering has good weight and is accurate, all-round vented disc brakes are powerful and the pedal feels sensitive if slighty over-assisted. This is an estate car for people who don't like estates. I only docked it a star because of its size and relatively high price. Now fetch me a Dalmatian or two. Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake 350 CDI Tested 2,987cc, V6 turbodiesel, seven-speed automatic transmission, rear-wheel drive Price/on sale £53,000/November. Power/torque 261bhp @ 3,800rpm/457lb ft @ 1,600rpm Top speed Acceleration 0-62mph in 6.6sec Fuel economy 38.7mpg/47.1mpg (EU Urban/Combined) CO2 emissions VED band Verdict Achingly gorgeous big tourer with hatchback practicality and none of the boxiness of an estate. Expensive, but so much more than a saloon with a box on the back. V6 diesel has the best balance of economy and performance. Telegraph rating Four out of five stars Audi A6 Avant from £32,455 Audi canned its elegant 2001 Shooting Break concept to pour resources into the execrable and gargantuan Q7. The A6 Avant might have a dated design, but it's still a pretty cool load carrier. BMW 5-series Touring, £33,370 BMW didn't even attempt a shooting break, preferring instead to make a strange hatch/saloon GT version of this car that no one likes. The straight 5-series estate leads the competition in handling and general sportiness terms. Jaguar XF Sportbrake from £31,940 Is this Ian Callum's shooting brake? If so it's a bit boxy and there's a slight lack of continuity between the XF front and estate rear. People like big cat estates though, so it could do well. We're driving it next month - watch this space.