A-CLASS DRUG Mercedes-AMG’s A45 S packs a punch as a hyper-hatch and the most powerful production four-cylinder
It's 1976. Volkswagen's engineers look over the first Golf GTIs heading out into the wide world.
I like to think they suspected they knew it might have been the start of something big.
Their eyes would fall clean out of their sockets if they could see what the hot-hatch segment would become.
The new Mercedes-AMG A45 S feels the beginning of a new bruising hyperhatch chapter thanks, in part, to its twinscroll turbocharged 2.0-litre, paired to a new 4MATIC all-wheel drive system and 8-speed dual-clutch gearbox. With
310kW/500Nm, it’s the most powerful four-cylinder engine ever produced. More power than a Ferrari 360, more torque than most double-cab utes and — crucially — 16kW/20Nm more than the Audi RS3.
The S is the solitary A45 model offered to Kiwis, bringing with it a
270km/h top speed and 3.9-second
0-100km/h acceleration time; yep, three-point-nine. It also means a jawdropping $111,000 starting price, with the $7990 AMG Edition 1 options pack attached to our tester bumping its bottom line to $118,990.
The extent of that price is enough to position the A45 S in the same monetary ballpark as sports cars like the BMW M2 Competition, Porsche Cayman, and Chevrolet Camaro. Whether a hatch should be priced against these heavyweights is a worthy conversation. I wonder just how many people are cross-shopping between the two worlds; likely not many.
There’s a more pressing question here. How can a grocery-getting, school-running hatchback possibly put down such a wanton amount of power and torque without snapping in half?
It isn’t AMG’s first rodeo when it comes to stuffing illogical amounts of grunt into a hatchback of course, and the last-gen A45 was plenty capable of handling its horses. But this new A45 is a new lofty benchmark again.
Twirl the steering-wheel-mounted drive-mode adjuster to “Sports+” or “Race”, plant your left foot on the brake and your right foot on the throttle, and you're greeted with a flashing tachometer and the words “Race Start”. Sidestep the brake, and you're instantly teleported.
The way the A45 handles its power off the line and out of corners is an equal parts clinic in brutality and efficiency. The 8-speed is as rapid as you'd expect — arguably more capable left to its own devices rather than when a human takes over via the paddles.
Inattentive passengers will have their heads slammed back into the leather buckets but from the driver's seat it all feels very linear and predictable.
The 2.0-litre, packed tightly in its engine-bay, is vocal and surprisingly
Amid the extreme business challenges of New Zealand’s Covid-19 alert levels, a leading Auckland dealer group is finding that distancing measures have advantages of their own for customers that could be continued beyond the current situation — maybe “forever”.
Matthew Wales is dealer principal of Andrew Simms, with new-car franchises for Mitsubishi, Kia, Jeep, Ram, Fiat, Haval and Great Wall.
Like the rest of New Zealand’s dealerships, Andrew Simms is currently operating a contactless business: test drives booked online, all administration via the internet or phone.
Servicing is where business has really picked up again under level 3 restrictions.
Again, booking and all transactions are done online; customer and loan cars are sanitised every time.
“Funnily enough, it’s actually sped up the process for customers and we’ve had some really good feedback about the ‘drop off and leave’ model,” says Wales.
Similarly, an online Hold This Car feature that has been trialled by Andrew Simms since last year has also been embraced by customers, who can reserve a used vehicle on the company’s website for a deposit of $200, until they have a chance to view/drive it.
It’s another example of the pandemic pushing a possibly permanent change.
“We’re planning to extend it,” says Wales. “If people in the area are unable to view the car, we’ll send them a full electronic report — scratches or scrapes, how many keys, all the essentials — and all paperwork can be done online.
“We’ll deliver the car contactlessly, the customer has a five-day period to inspect and if for any reason they’re not happy, we’ll give them a full refund.”
With a month of lockdown and virtually no sales, plus the prospect of unwanted rental cars coming on to the market, you might surmise that usedcar customers will be faced with some genuine bargains.
“There are a few factors here,” says Wales. “There was a real shortage of good quality used cars before lockdown; there was also a change to import laws [from January, cars had to be fitted with stability control]. So that limited supply a bit.
“We’re doing a lot of rental car [reselling] business ourselves. What we’re seeing is maybe not the bargains that have been talked about in the media but there are really well-priced used cars that are much newer and much lower mileage than we might usually see.
“We also tend to think that later in the year we’re likely to see a contraction of supply. Remember that during April there were no cars traded either . . . so it depends on how newvehicle volume goes and how the rest of the world behaves.”
The biggest change in customer behaviour since the Covid-19 crisis is an awareness of car hygiene, he says.
Andrew Simms previously offered an interior treatment called Bactakleen — a “fogging” anti-viral, anti-bacterial agent that lasts about three months — as a $200 option. It now includes that with every service and Wales sees that as an “integral part of used car preparation” for the next six to 12 months.
Possibly longer, like so many distancing services driven by Covid-19 that are bringing unexpected benefits to customers.
“We see that taking cars to customers’ houses, operating at a distance, is something that will go on forever, really. It’s more convenient for them and it makes sense for us to do it. I don’t see any reason why we’d now change that behaviour outside of the pandemic.”