Yahoo Autos The Mercedes-AMG GLA 35 Is Confusing and Compelling
Twenty years ago, Mercedes-Benz had a small sports car at the bottom of its performance range. That SLK was far from a classic, but it attracted entry-level buyers, leading them toward the promised land of V-8 AMGs, V-12 SLs, and McLaren-built SLRs. That car, briefly rebranded the SLC before being phased out, is well gone. Nowadays, volume luxury-car sales in America are driven by crossovers, and luxury-brand profits are helped along by high-margin performance models. That world needs a different Mercedes performance entry point, and that is a tall hot hatchback called the GLA 35 AMG.
The GLA? Yes, it's an actual thing that exists. The subcompact crossover is a raised A-class hatch, itself a car that never reached America. At 12,623 models sold last year, only the silly-price G-wagen was sold at lower volumes among Mercedes crossovers. The point of it is not to rake in cash but to bring in modestly wealthy buyers who crave a Mercedes ownership experience and will eventually move up to higher-profit-margin machinery like the GLE. Putting an AMG engine in the GLA makes similar business sense; a GLA 35 buyer impressed by the performance and feel of the car will likely be much richer in five years and could move to a GLE 63, a C63, or even the lusciously ripe-with-margin AMG GT.
But this is a Mercedes-AMG, so affordability is relative. The regular GLA is a pricey brand-entry point at $41,850, and the AMG comes in at a much loftier $56,450. Pricey options like AMG's now-signature 21-inch multispoke wheels ($2450), ventilated performance seats ($3250), and a premium tech package ($4000) together can drive that up beyond $75,000. The test not-a-Benz did not opt for the performance seats and a few other luxuries, but the wheels and three different tech packages (including the brand's advanced driver-assistance system) chunked the price up to $66,400.
The GLA does not feel like a car closing in on $70,000. The frustrations of the modern Mercedes experience are here, from the beautiful but complicated MBUX infotainment operating system to the overly thick steering wheel with four spokes of capacitive touch buttons that never quite do what you want. A few of those are moved to options, but the lack of clearly marked buttons means finding out whether the car had those options or not was a game of asking the automated voice assistant to activate features the car didn't have.
In places, this GLA AMG feels spartan. Pieces that are regularly touched, like the headliner and sun shade, are notably subpar for the price point. This one did not have the optional AMG bucket seats, and while the standard seats are a cut above what would normally come in a subcompact crossover, they are predictably far from the many-point adjustable and massaging standard the brand sets with its higher-end offerings. The MBUX system is designed for the large, high-resolution screens on those upmarket cars too, making it an even more awkward system to use on the small integrated screen in what is in so many ways a throwback.
Thankfully, the GLA does have an actual volume roller for its audio system. While not as good as a knob, that one physical control is a nice change of pace for a brand so addicted to removing buttons that the convertible top on the latest SL is operated via a slider buried in the menus of its central tablet interface. The Burmeister sound system won't convince anyone that they're in the back of a Maybach S-Class, but it elevates a car that, at times, sorely lacks refinement.
All of those problems are forgivable at the standard GLA MSRP. They stand out more because the car is more expensive, and it is more expensive because it is, to a great degree, fast. AMG's turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder produces 302 hp, helped along by a starter-generator mild-hybrid system. That power gets distributed across all four wheels for a 0-to-60-mph time of 5.1 seconds. Is it the screaming V-8 of the last generation of C63 AMG? Nope. But it gets the job done.
It is more than quick enough to get across the point of the AMG badge to younger buyers interested in a sportier small crossover, which is probably the reason that the faster GLA 45 is no longer offered in the market. That car produced a seriously impressive 382 hp, enough to put the GLA in a realm with the Audi RS3 and BMW M2. That is not really competition this car wants; those are track-ready performance cars, and this is a car that optimistically offers an off-road interface in its menus.
What the GLA does have is a 3653-pound curb weight, which is not only 200 pounds lighter than the M2 but also a shocking thousand pounds lighter than the latest C63 AMG. That makes it among the lightest AMG models, a bit heavier than the CLA 35 AMG sedan based on the same bones and some 300 pounds lighter than the four-cylinder rear-drive SL 43. The weight, and the short wheelbase, stand out on the road.
The GLA is already a perfectly serviceable city car and highway cruiser, but the AMG elements add abilities that bring the car to life on any road with corners. Everything feels faster than the speeds on the optional head-up display suggest, particularly when all 300-some horsepower are dialed into the wheels on the way out of a corner. A performance-oriented steering option delivers enough feedback to give the driver a sense of what is happening at the wheels and scratch the go-fast itch in their brain. And an itchy brain can be a tough scratch.
That, combined with the significant grip and solid braking performance on Continental SportContact tires, make a driver more confident in the car's performance than maybe they should be in what is a crossover SUV. This is not a direct rival to the old-fashioned charms of the manual-equipped BMW M2 or the impressive torque-vectoring tricks of the Audi RS3, but it is as serious a performance product as you could ask a Mercedes GLA to be.
In the SL, a more powerful version of this four-cylinder feels like a disappointment. That was a car designed for the theater and thrill of a V-8 pulling you down the road. This is a car designed mostly just to exist in comfort, and here a less powerful version of the same engine feels theatrical in its own ways. Particularly noisy turbochargers raise memories of hot hatchbacks of the past, cars mostly built by brands not so focused on luxury. Shifts are abrupt and satisfying, even if the sportier transmission settings do not make for the most pleasant experience around town.
In addition to all that, the GLA seats five with a decent amount of room for their cargo. It's an appealing package that brings performance to a segment that did not even exist a decade and a half ago. For an enthusiast, it's an odd entry point to Mercedes performance. For the sort of Mercedes customers who enjoy the brand's modern options and see the price as reasonable, the GLA 35 brings a lot to love.
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