It is the smallest Mercedes Benz car out there, but don’t let the exterior appearance fool you.
The
front doors of the A-class are large and wide but the roof-line is low
so ingress isn’t as easy as the taller B-class. Once inside, you’ll be
welcomed by the sporty interior. The SLS AMG inspiration continues
inside the A-class as well and therefore the air-vents seem like they
have come straight out of Merc’s flagship sports car. The A-class also
gets the same tablet device for the COMAND interface – but this one has a
funkier mounting. Mercedes Benz also tells us that this version of
COMAND is more feature-rich than any of its predecessors and has much
stronger iPhone integration. However, our iPhone 5 was not supported and
the Merc app on the iPhone 4 would crash too often – so we couldn’t
really check the functionality of this app or the iPhone integration. If
it works though, this app lets you browse Facebook and Twitter from the
COMAND interface itself, update status messages, synchronize satellite
navigation, search for points of interests and even listen to internet
radio stations using your iPhone’s GPRS connection.
Mercedes
Benz also hired a special team of engineers to design the switchgear
that you see on the centre console. These blokes studied buttons and
switches from various cell-phones and input-output devices to make sure
that the feel of the switches feels equally good. But since this car is
targeted towards the youth, they should have given complete touch-screen
controls instead! Wishful-thinking that. But at least the COMAND
interface could have been touch-screen in today’s times. The interface
has another set of controls on the steering wheel and you also have a
voice-command system. Interestingly, the car will lower the speed of the
air-con vents / blowers to make sure that it can hear you clearly when
you are speaking out those voice commands. The woman accepting those
commands is still as confused as ever, though.
Typical
to Mercedes Benz, the gear selector is mounted behind the steering
wheel as a stalk. That frees up quite a bit of space between the seats
for cubby holes and cup holders. You also expect the mode selector (for
the Drive, Sport and Manual modes) to be somewhere behind the steering
wheel too. However, that switch is mounted on the centre console. The
other elements in the centre console include the switches for the
dual-zone climate control, the Start-Stop system and the park assist.
Being a Mercedes Benz car you also expect premium interiors. Therefore
you get soft plastics on the top and on the dashboard and the surrounds
for the instrumentation, the tablet and the A/C vents have a premium
feel. As you move further down, the flaps for the storage spaces and the
walls of the centre console, feel a tad low-rent.
Other
areas where the cost cutting is evident is the low-rent fabric below
the panoramic sunroof and the lack of electric adjustments from the
front passenger seat. Same isn’t the case with the front driver seat
though. You get electric adjustments, three-way memory function and
lumbar support. The front seats are also adequately large and have a
sportscar-esque design with integrated headrests. The side bolsters are
supportive and the seats feel good when pushing the car around bends.
The seats come with leather upholstery and our test car was clad in
an-black scheme, which goes really well with the sporty character of the
car.
Move
over to the rear bench and you’ll be surprised with the kind of space
this small hatchback offers. Even with the front seat moved back to its
limit, there is still a fair amount of knee room and foot space for a
six-footer. Under-thigh support should have been better though. Headroom
at the back seems pretty decent at first, until you realize that the
tapering design of glass house brings the edges of the roof really close
to your head. So you’ll want to watch your head while getting in and
out of the car. The low roof line and the small rear windows might make
you feel claustrophobic on long drives as well.
But
urban commutes or a short weekend getaway is what the A-class really
aims at and the boot affirms that fact. The rear boot has a two-shelf
layout with the lower shelf holding all the tools and the jack, while
the upper shelf (or the cargo shelf) loses some of its space to the
space-saver spare wheel and therefore, don’t expect this boot to swallow
large suitcases. While the A-class may look wide, the opening for the
boot is pretty narrow. The loading lip is quite low though so throwing
in your monthly groceries or shopping bags shouldn’t be too difficult.
For your golf or cricket gear though, you might have to drop the rear
seats.
The
level of luxury that the A-class offers is pretty good for an
entry-level luxury compact. Its sporty character adds further aspiration
value so this little Mercedes. But does it have a sporty performance
too?
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