Best Value Performance Cars
Gallery 1
IT’S A bronze medal for Mercedes-AMG’s heavy-hitting hot hatch, but what the A45’s third place outright proves is that, even at $80K, it’s got the bang to back up its not-inconsiderable-buck.
As we touched upon when chronicling the A45’s crushing of the $50K-$100K class, it’s achieved all these things despite being penalised for having standard equipment that is otherwise optional overseas. A standard sunroof? If stuff like this was optional – gear that contributes nothing to the A45’s performance – and we were working with a lower starting price, we can only imagine just how the Bang 2016 result might have looked.
But for now though, we will celebrate an outstanding performance car which is dishing up great value from Merc’s mad scientists at AMG. We love its dummy-proof launch control. We love how it feels like a fish in water on track. And we love how the new adaptive dampers, on road, turn the A45 into a weekend-only proposition into something you could drive daily.
But, given its debut performance at Bang, we can no longer confidently include price on that list of criticisms. It might be the third step of the podium outright today, but the Mercedes-AMG A45 is absolutely built of the stuff that makes a Bang For Your Bucks winner.
Want more? Check out the rest of 2016 Bang For Your Bucks.
