These are apparently the first official pictures of the long awaited Mercedes CLA, leaked onto the web ahead of the car’s official debut next month. The idea for this car is to be a smaller, more affordable version of the CLS, but what we’re seeing here looks much cooler than that.

Mercedes, it seems, is going to start yet another niche with this compact four-door coupe. The CLA is based on the same platform as the new Mercedes A-Class, and shares a lot of its parts with it. That is good news, because the new A-Class turned out to be a brilliant car, and it brings down the cost of production, helping that affordability target.

The design of the CLA is based on the Style Coupe Concept. It doesn’t look as fancy as the concept car, but for a production model with a base price of under 30,000 Euro, the CLA is pretty good.

It will be a joyful car to driver as well, boasting a sophisticated chassis, optional four-wheel-drive, and a range of good petrol and diesel engines. Later on there will also be an AMG version, the CLA45 AMG, powered by the firm’s new 2.0 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. It’ll have 350 horsepower and 450 Nm of torque.