There’s one thing you can say about the little Mercedes-Benz A 45 AMG, and that is it’s a lot of fun to drive. Also, it goes, as they say in the suburbs in less delicate terms, like sand off a shovel. And it handles like it looks, offering an exciting, sporty driving experience.
The A 45’s four-cylinder 2.0-litre engine packs quite a punch, boosted by a twin-scroll turbocharger that, Mercedes says, provides a more spontaneous build-up of charge pressure. It develops 265 kilowatts, with a torque peak of 450 Newton metres at 6000 revs, giving rise to claims it’s the most powerful four-cylinder in series production.
It’s also fast, topping out at 270km/h (electronically limited – and probably just as well). It can cover the zero to 100km/h sprint in 4.6 seconds, although some lead-footers reportedly have recorded 4.1 seconds.
With that sort of grunt under the bonnet, it’s too tempting not use it. And when you do, this little red bullet lets out an exciting, throaty howl from its twin AMG performance exhaust system. You tend to put your foot down just to hear it.
While Mercedes’ official fuel figures are recorded as a frugal 6.9 litres per 100 kilometres, if you want to have some fun in this exotic little car, you can expect to see the fuel nudging 14L/100km. But that’s the price you pay to play. To get 6.9L/100km, you’d have to put a little old man in slippers at the wheel.
The A 45 is a sporty four-door. It was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show last year, labelled as the smallest Mercedes tuned by the company’s performance arm. It is also the first AMG car with a four-cylinder engine and, like all the AMGs, the engine is assembled by hand.
It’s mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic sports transmission. Paddles behind the steering wheel let you drive the car as a manual, if that’s your thing. Flick the left paddle to kick the seven-speeder down a notch and the back end will emit that wonderful growl.
Plant the foot from standstill in auto, though, and while the car will take off like a wildcat in pursuit of its prey, it tends to jerk a tad, leaving you with the impression that it just has too many gears to choose from. But get it moving and it launches like the proverbial rocket. The paddles, however, do provide extremely quick shifts.
There’s also plenty of safety gear, such as seven airbags, and vented, cross-drilled and grooved disc brakes front and rear. You only have to look at the big red brake calipers inside those 19-inch AMG multispoke alloys to know the car can stop on a pinhead. It also has an AMG aerodynamics package, four-wheel ABS and traction and stability control and AMG sports suspension, including what’s called Curve Dynamic Assist, which gives the car its precise cornering ability.
The cockpit comes with red-stitched and red-piped black leather, red-ringed chrome air vents and body-hugging AMG Performance seats. Even the AMG badges in the chrome strips under the doors light up at night.
The A 45 AMG has most of the features of its bigger brothers, such as satnav and a reversing camera, panoramic electric sunroof and heated electric front seats with three-stage memory and xenon headlights.
In normal driving it uses front-wheel-drive for optimum efficiency, but put the foot down and the variable AMG 4Matic all-wheel-drive system kicks in and splits torque 50-50 between front and rear axles.
It was inevitable that Mercedes would eventually join the hot-hatch brigade. I can remember all the excitement after the launch 20 years ago of the Subaru Impreza WRX, the original “pocket rocket”. From memory they were quickly sold out. I also remember someone in Melbourne flying to Perth and paying about $60,000 just to get his hands on one. The price at the time was $40,000-$45,000.
These two cars come from different playing fields but, just for comparison, while at $75,000 the A 45 AMG sounds expensive, when compared with $60,000 paid for a WRX 20 years ago, you’d have to say the A 45 AMG is cheap. And you get a lot more bang for your bucks.
» Test car supplied by 3 Point Motors. Test drive it at 3 Point Motors, 128 Denmark Street, Kew. 9853 6669
MERCEDES-BENZ A 45 AMG
What is it? Performance-oriented all-wheel-drive.
What’s in it? A 265-kilowatt, twin-scroll turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine with a seven-speed sports auto.
0-100km/h: 4.6 sec.
Is it thirsty? 6.9 litres per 100km (driven sedately).
Mercedes-Benz A 45 AMG 4matic: $74,900 plus onroad costs
Thumbs Up \ Beautifully fitted out, great interior colours, bundles of power, superb handling, intoxicating throaty sound.
Thumbs Down \ Jerky start at full throttle in auto. No gas struts on the bonnet.
* These are manufacturer’s list prices.
