AMG? This magical Merc is more OMG!

No duvet days for Chris this weekend, just a gruelling Top Gear filming session in the Lake District. Yes, it is €14,000 more than last week’s lacklustre Honda – but at least he’s found a beast he can really enjoy

Mercedes-Benz A 250 AMG

★★★★ ★

As you are reading this, providing it’s some time on Sunday, I shall be either hot on the tail of Matt LeBlanc behind the wheel of an American Legend, or looking at him in my rear-view mirror bearing down heavily on the rear leaf springs of the Fifties icon I’ve been loaned to take him on. Yes, we’re filming Top Gear.

This is in stark contrast to the weekends I’ve become accustomed to: classic family weekends and, most important of all, classic Sunday family duvet days. The duvet day is a big hit in our house. They’re our new favourite thing. We declare them whenever we can, and various rules have now evolved.

All members of the family must remain in their pyjamas from Saturday night until Monday morning. When it comes to control of the TV remote, kids get first pick, Mum goes second and Dad last. A family Lego build, jigsaw or board game must be ongoing throughout. There is an absolute ban on the use of cutlery to eat food. Ah, Sunday Sweet Sunday, forever precious.

Last week our duvet day ended with one of the best two-part documentaries I’ve seen in ages:

Greece With Simon Reeve. If you have a spare two hours any time soon, you could do a lot worse than play catch-up with Simon’s excellent account of the madness that has befallen Greece since its entry into the Euro in 2001.

Safe to say, that I can’t see many new Merc A 250 AMGs rolling off car transporters in Athens any time soon. That said, I’m not sure if what I tested this week was an AMG in the first place. The paperwork said as much, but when the car arrived there was not a single AMG badge to be seen. Not a single AMG growl or gurgle to be heard. Strange.

Whatever. The styling is AMG-attractive – a good-looking car indeed. Modern but not gim- micky, so hopefully it will not date too quickly. Like the seemingly timeless VW Scirocco, it’s small and chunky but perfectly proportioned, stopping well before the wrong side of ostentatious.

Style often comes at a price, though, and to be honest that’s the only major downside here. The dramatically rakish but therefore drastically compromised roof line means it feels a wee bit claustrophobic indoors. Not squished, but more teenagers and kid-friendly in the back than big boys on the way to the Six Nations. The windscreen feels pretty ‘in yer face’ too. Everything else, in a nutshell, is ace.

Inside we have the usual new Mercedes chic. I particularly like the faux leather, carbon-fibre dash effect and the super-comfortable fabric seats, which may have set a new world record for heating up in the shortest time. And what’s not to like about the odd sporty red seatbelt? A flash of colour here and there always brightens up proceedings, and red on black is among the best of all combos.

I also liked the constantly changing ambient mood lighting that kicks in when the car is not running but still active. And the audio sound quality is stunning, without a recognised outsourced logo hanging around to claim credit. Maybe it’s living in sin with those missing AMG badges.

So all good then, with the single exception of the otherwise glorious new gearbox, which is a joy to play with, except for reverse, which is an awkward lift. All the way to the left and down. This felt prehistoric in comparison to the six-cog forward gate that was knife-through-butter smooth and as tight as the cocked wrist of a fly fisherman.

From a handling point of view, you just want to keep on driving. I found myself staying in lower gears at higher revs for the sheer hell of it, while almost commentating vaingloriously on my own cornering I was having so much fun. It has great braking, too.

You could argue that the engine is a bit noisy on start-up but sitting in the car with the door closed it’s as quiet as a mouse, and that’s all that really matters. The motor in question is a two-litre

four-banger with

barely any noticeable turbo lag.

Feisty, though nowhere near as exciting as the (pricier) A45 AMG. But it’ll do more than fine for most folks.

THE GEARBOX IS KNIFE-THROUGHBUTTER SMOOTH AND AS TIGHT AS THE COCKED WRIST OF A FLY FISHERMAN DON’T MISS PHILIP NOLAN’S BRILLIANT MOTORING COLUMN IN THE IRISH DAILY

MAIL ON SATURDAYS