The All New Mercedes A-Class – Review
The Mercedes A-Class was originally launched in 1997 and was Mercedes first time in the small car market. The A-Class sold like hot cakes with almost 2 million baby Mercedes being sold. The car was quirky and very brave for Mercedes who had previously dominated the executive market for many years. Handling was a bit of a problem for the miniature Merc in the early days with a few of the cars falling over. Mercedes took a little while to admit there was a problem but with their reputation of high quality cars looking like it could be tarnished, they took the brave step and recalled all the cars! They also stopped new car registrations until the problem was fixed. It was quite a major fix as all the vehicles affected needed electronic stability control and a modification to the suspension. The A-Class then had several new faces over the years but mainly kept its original style right up until 2012.
Mercedes over the last few years have been beaten and suffered market share loss to Audi and Volkswagen whose market share is getting stronger every year. One of the criticisms of Mercedes has always been that they appeal to an older demographic. Audi however have managed to place their product to appeal to all age groups. So Mercedes have come back fighting with a new styled baby Merc. The all new A-Class may as well have had a different name! It is so different to the outgoing model. The new A-Class is stunning. Full of its own personality but with hints of quality from its bigger brothers the C-Class and E-Class this really is a car you would now like to own and be proud of!
The model line up starts with the A180 but the car to have is the limited Engineered by AMG model. Only 250 of these cars have been built. The blistering speed and amazing safety features should be the selling point of this car but its not. The New A-Class Engineered by AMG is stunning and in a bold step by Mercedes they have really gone to town on the detail and it certainly seems to be paying off!
Ok so you have heard the good bits but what don’t we like about it? Well not a great deal really- just some small niggles. The narrow boot is going to make it difficult for a family to get a small push chair in and even a keen golfer would struggle. We also found that visibility was not as good through the rear window as we would have hoped. I know you can have parking sensors fitted but the car’s high shoulder line does make parking it quite hard work. Having said that these few niggles would not stop me ordering one. Right, who is off down to the Mercedes dealership this weekend then?