Why I cannot bind some class to one variable on groovy?

gistfile1.txt

[3/5.0.2]niwi@localhost:~/Downloads/groovy-2.2.0-beta-2> ./bin/groovysh
Groovy Shell (2.2.0-beta-2, JVM: 1.7.0_40)
Type 'help' or '\h' for help.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
groovy:000> class Foo {}
===> true
groovy:000> instance1 = new Foo()
===> Foo@6f24bcc6
groovy:000> cls = Foo
===> class Foo
groovy:000> cls
===> class Foo
groovy:000> new cls()
ERROR org.codehaus.groovy.control.MultipleCompilationErrorsException:
startup failed:
groovysh_evaluate: 2: unable to resolve class cls 
 @ line 2, column 1.
   new cls()
   ^

1 error

        at java_lang_Runnable$run.call (Unknown Source)

I think is a bug

Groovy Shell (2.2.0-beta-2, JVM: 1.6.0_51)
Type 'help' or '\h' for help.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
groovy:000> class Foo {}
===> true
groovy:000> cls = Foo
===> class Foo
groovy:000> cls.newInstance()
===> Foo@c1bb35b
groovy:000> new cls()
ERROR org.codehaus.groovy.control.MultipleCompilationErrorsException:
startup failed:
groovysh_evaluate: 2: unable to resolve class cls
 @ line 2, column 1.
   new cls()
   ^

1 error

        at java_lang_Runnable$run.call (Unknown Source)

No, it's not a bug, it's just not supported.
There were some historical reasons for that at the time we made that design decision, but the details escape me now.

Thanks for comments. But would be nice to use new in these cases too.