By Paul Gover.
Just when it looked as if the hot hatch was dying, along comes a fresh crop.
We’ve already tasted the spicy Renault Megane RS and hustled the user-friendly Ford Fiesta ST, now there is the Mercedes-AMG A 35.
It’s the starting point for the latest in fast-car fizziness from the AMG go-fast division, although a price-tag approaching $70,000 means it’s more like the base camp for Everest than something from a sea-level showroom.
The AMG A-class has been around for a while but this one is all-new, with a mechanical package that combines a punchy four-cylinder turbo engine with all-wheel drive and a seven-speed DSG gearbox. It is also available as four-door sedan.
The mechanical stuff is good, and its a good looker, but it’s the onboard technology that will win a lot of young fans.
You can fiddle with everything from cabin lighting colours to (on the test car) massage seats with a variety of programs, displays that cover everything from cornering forces to the temperature of the gearbox oil.
The ‘Mercedes Me’ voice recognition system works well but, for me, cannot do enough to help. More functions are being added but it’s more of a (very impressive) gimmick for now.
And, as usual with an AMG car, there are switchable driving programs that are now controlled by a rotary dial on the steering wheel.
The basics are not much different from a Hyundai i30, with a reasonable boot and cramped space in the back for adults, but even the i30 N go-fast car is comprehensively out-gunned by the Benz.
It’s a very quick car in a straight-line sprint, with a 0-100km/h of 4.7 seconds that would have made it a supercar as recently as the 1990s, has tenacity in turns, and stops brilliantly.
Like all of the Euro hot hatches it has a farty and belching exhaust on the Sport and Sport+ drive programs, but can be commendably quiet in Comfort.
The headlights are brilliant, the final finishing is everything I expect in a Benz, and I like the aluminium flappy gearshift paddles and the infotainment screen.
But …
It can be droning noisy at highway speeds, with stiff suspension and sticky tyres, and it’s not remotely cheap. And a lot of the bells-and-whistles seem to be ‘because we can’ and not for a great driver benefit. Once you’ve found your favourite settings there is no need to play, unless you have a bored 10-year-old in the passenger seat.
But, compared with the BMW 2 Series it’s a wicked little thing that will be very attractive to the sort of people who once bought a Subaru WRC or Lancer Evo to inject some fun into their driving.
If it was cheaper it would be a landmark car, but then everyone would want one.
As it is, the A 35 is already one of the most memorable cars I’ve tested in 2020. And next week I’ll be sliding into it’s biggest sister, the A 45 with all the Mercedes-AMG stuff turned up to 11 …
THE BASICS
Mercedes
Price: from $67,200
Power: 225kW/400Nm
Position: upscale hot hatch
Plus: fast, fun, Benz badge
Minus: costly, complicated, noisy
THE TICK: Yes
