Why Is Mercedes Un-Wagoning Everything?

The outgoing first-generation Mercedes-Benz GLA was a stealth station wagon. With dimensions that mimicked precisely the height (60") and width (71") of my beloved 2018 VW Golf Alltrack and skimped only slightly on the length (175" vs 180"), it managed to wobble along the treacherous border of cute-ute-dom like a wine club denizen barely passing a roadside field sobriety test. I mean, just look at these two cars side by side. They could be fraternal twins, if one of the twins was deprived of nourishment in the womb and came out five inches shorter and much uglier.

The new Mercedes GLA250, which I tested recently, is a resolutely more capable vehicle in every way. Its steering is more precise. Its interior materials don’t look anywhere near as de-contented, especially if it’s loaded up with $18,000 in options like the version I drove. Its suspension is more supple. And its 4Matic all-wheel-drive system feels more sure-footed, even if I spent more than my fair share of time panic-braking as it skidded down the ice luge of a driveway at the AirBnB a friend and I rented.

Sadly, it completely fails the wagon test. This is mainly the fault of the design. It’s now three-and-a-half inches taller, putting it at 63.5 inches and placing it directly between the Kia Soul and Kia Sportage, both decidedly not wagons. It’s also about an inch-and-a-quarter wider, which, while not exactly in the same territory as a 1975 Buick Estate—the most humongous regular production wagon ever built—still lends the Benz a thickness that mimics its bigger siblings, the GLC and GLE. (It also provides enhanced storage capacity when compared to the outgoing model, which is, countervailingly, a wagon hallmark.)

In fact, so similar is the GLA in shape to those larger vehicles that when I posted a photo of the trucklet, someone at Mercedes’ own social media account mistook it for its big brother. Thankfully, it at least avoids the function-sapping seething-tortoise profile of its "crossover coupe" cousins.