Mercedes-AMG A35 4Matic 2019 first international drive

In fact, if we’re to believe the rumoured hype – that the 2019 A45 will be packing 300kW – then this newly introduced A35 AMG seems perfectly positioned. Loitering mid-way between the A250 4Matic and the forthcoming A45 in both power output and price, the A35 could well be the fast, but not as feral, performance hatch punters are looking for.

Is the A35 right for me?

Alongside the A250 4Matic it’s based on, the A35 is quite a different beast for $10K-plus. It blends all the new A-Class’s high-fashion technology with significantly enhanced underpinnings, making it drive more like a lesser-powered new-gen A45 than an uprated A250.

If ultimate steering precision, front-end bite, and yaw-moment gains in switching the stability control to ESP Sport mean absolutely nothing to you, then stick to the A250 4Matic with AMG-Line package. But if something we just mentioned brings a twinkle to your eye, then the A35 could have your name on it.

What do you get for your money?

Our Sun Yellow test car was equipped with everything Mercedes-AMG could squeeze into it and that’s pretty much how the A35 will appear in Australia.

The full MBUX (Mercedes-Benz User Experience) set-up of twin 10.25-inch cockpit screens with AMG Supersport display mode, as well as ‘Hey Mercedes’ voice control, artificial intelligence, and Mercedes Me connect will garnish the A35’s characterful interior beautifully.

We’ll also get the best suspension (AMG Ride Control with adaptive damping), the largest wheels (19-inch), AMG Dynamics within the ESP calibration (which tweaks the handling response), and an AMG sports exhaust system.

Other equipment fitted to our test car included adaptive LED headlights, a tasteful bodykit, a centre console touchpad, keyless entry and start, two-tone charcoal/grey AMG Performance leather seats with light grey stitching (instead of Artico leatherette/Dinamica microfibre), and an AMG Performance steering wheel with Dinamica microfibre rim (Nappa leather and a leather/microfibre mix are also available).

An A35 Edition 1 version will be on sale for the first 18 months and features the AMG Aerodynamics Package (including a roof-mounted rear wing with genuine downforce benefits) and AMG Night Package as standard. Painted in Denim Blue with Tech Gold accents in the side mirrors and gold horizontal stripes on the lower sections of the doors, the Edition 1 wears 19-inch ‘Livorno’ alloys with a high-sheen finish and a Tech Gold hue.

Inside, Edition 1 gets black/grey AMG Performance seats in Artico/Dinamica with blue accents, medium-grey top-stitching and seat heating, as well as ambient lighting, aluminium trim elements and an ‘Edition’ badge on the AMG Performance steering wheel.

Mercedes-Benz Australia is yet to confirm pricing for the A35, mainly because it’s around a year away from sale here, but you can expect it to neatly bridge the AMG-Line-equipped A250 4Matic (due February) and next-gen A45 in price, meaning somewhere around $68-70K.

How safe is the A35?

With the airbag count and semi-autonomous driving ability of an S-Class, the A35 is far from being short-changed on the safety-feature front. Indeed, at present, no other small hatchback can compete with the A35’s available assistance tech.

But there’s also much to commend the A35’s passive-safety credentials. The road-hugging purchase of its all-wheel-drive system, enhanced by the neutrality of its handling even in the more focused sports modes, means this is a really hard car to get wrong.

What's the interior like?

Driving our Sun Yellow A35 at dusk, with the AMG Supersport instrument option gracing its left-hand MBUX display and subtle yellow ambient lighting (one of 64 options) glowing from various nooks and crannies, this car is the duck’s guts.

You can dump the AMG Performance front seats virtually onto the floor, and the winged sides hug you vice-like as the A35 demonstrates its g-force potential. The A-shaped door grabs are both neat-looking and great for hanging on to when the driver is having a go (though there are no roof-mounted handles), and there’s wonderment in all the pretty graphics decorating the central 10.25-inch MBUX screen – controllable by either touching or swiping the screen itself, performing the same actions on the lower control pad, or the same again on the right-hand wheel spoke’s square touchpad.  

The upper sections of all the cabin plastics are satisfyingly squidgy with a chunky dot-print graining, and the microfibre steering-wheel rim on our test car is pure seduction. Ditto the rest of our test car’s (optional) trim, though the A35’s lower plastics are best ignored. Robust? Yes. Expensive? Perhaps not.

How much space does it have?

There’s much more room in the new A35 than there was in the rather cramped and claustrophobic old-gen A, without being detrimental to its overall shape. While the rear seat cushion might be a bit lacking in under-thigh support, there’s competitive space, a reasonable view forward, a pair of rear air vents and the same A-shaped door grabs to hang on to as up front, plus roof-mounted handles. No centre armrest though.

The 40/20/40-split rear seat backrests mimic the funky tombstone shape of the front buckets, yet fold to an almost fully flat position, and the A35’s boot is a bloody good size – 370 litres beneath the luggage cover, or 1270 litres in baby-wagon mode.

What's under the bonnet of the A35?

Based on the M260 2.0-litre direct-injection turbo four-cylinder in the A250, Mercedes-AMG says the A35’s engine “is an entirely new development.”

A new a twin-scroll turbocharger with parallel intake ducts and two separate exhaust ducts in the exhaust manifold feeds into a barky AMG sports exhaust system to achieve significant output increases over the A250.

Power jumps by 36 per cent (or 60kW) to 225kW at 5800rpm, while torque is plumped to 400Nm (up 50Nm) from 3000-4000rpm. Driving through a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission with identical gear ratios to the outgoing A45, the A35 feels and sounds uncannily like its forebear, albeit with a little more decorum.

Using launch control, Mercedes-AMG claims the A35 will blast from 0-100km/h in 4.7 seconds – just 0.1sec slower than the original A45’s claim. And at the other extreme, the A35 is capable of sipping just 7.4L/100km on the official European combined cycle while meeting strict Euro 6d emissions requirements.

Is the A35 enjoyable to drive?

One of the greatest things about the A35 is that it doesn’t feel anything like an A250 4Matic dynamically – it feels like a completely different car!

The key to that perception lies underneath. AMG has redesigned and redeveloped nearly every part of it, stiffening the front suspension top mounts for more consistent camber stiffness and toe stability, while altering the steering ratio and mounting the steering rack directly to the subframe. According to AMG Vehicle Dynamic Engineer, Rene Szczepek, the only carry-over part geometrically is the wishbone on the front axle, and even it is only “nearly the same”.

The front and rear subframes have also had all the rubber removed, with each now bolted directly to the chassis. And an aluminium “shear panel” has been bolted to the body under the engine to increase the torsional rigidity of the front section, in turn improving turn-in precision and road-holding stability. There are also two additional diagonal braces up front to reduce twisting and increase rigidity. No wonder the A35 feels so different to an A250!

That means steering that’s really direct, not aloof and a bit fluffy, and a front-end with terrific bite that goes exactly where you point it. With a similar engineering approach to improving camber stiffness and toe stability at the rear end also working in the A35’s favour, it’s no wonder AMG’s hot-hatch-lite feels so beautifully neutral and rooted to the ultra-smooth, super-twisty tarmac on Majorca’s north-western coast, where this car was launched internationally.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Porsche should be chuffed that Mercedes-AMG was inspired by its steering-wheel-mounted drive-mode dial. In this instance, the round controller beneath the A35’s right-hand wheel spoke is just like that on a 718 Cayman, spanning Comfort, Sport and Sport+ modes …. except when you press the centre and it selects Individual (which can be configured in the AMG Dynamics screen in the centre multimedia display). It’s brilliant on the move.

So too is the configurable touchpad-select thingy beneath the left-hand wheelspoke, which lets you swipe through three functions for the two switches. You can choose manual transmission mode or flick the dampers to Comfort when the rest of the settings remain in Sport/Sport+ (or vice versa) – finally separating steering weight and damping rates in an AMG. Or, more relevant here, select ESP Sport (or ‘ESP Off’ if it’s your car) which tweaks the stability-control’s braking of the inside rear wheel in cornering to create a greater yaw moment around the vertical axis. In short, it increases the effect of the outside rear wheel driving the A35’s nose into a corner.

There’s so much grip and balance in the A35’s handling that you can easily see how this chassis could handle more power. You have to work hard to dislodge the A35’s tail in a tight corner, and even then it’s only subtle. With such a biting front end, you can stand on the A35’s throttle really early and relish the way it hooks in and spears out. And in Sport+ mode (or Individual), there’s double-declutching during downshifts and partial cylinder cut-off via brief retardation of ignition and injection under full load. Result? Crackling on overrun and that blurting exhaust bark on upshifts that has become the trademark of AMG’s 45 models. It’s a bit more subtle here, but still delicious.

Aussie cars will get AMG Ride Control standard, which means adaptive dampers to deliver a proper ride in conjunction with 19-inch wheels. According to Andreas Meyer, AMG’s Overall Vehicle Development boss, they’ve made the A35 “as comfortable as possible in Comfort mode, without losing anything in Sport+”. And in the Majorcan town we finish the drive route in, I forget I’m in Sport+ mode and am surprised at how decent the A35’s ride is. Only Australia’s notoriously unforgiving surfaces can provide a true assessment of Meyer’s claim, but we can confirm there’s still plenty of tyre roar from the A35’s 225/40R19 Pirelli P Zeros on coarse surfaces. A brief section of Aussie-style tar on the way to the airport makes that abundantly clear!

Probably should also mention that the A35’s brakes didn’t completely win us over either. Despite ventilated and perforated 350mm front discs (same size as the old A45) with radial-mounted four-piston monobloc calipers, and 330mm ventilated/perforated rear discs, the A35’s pedal started to lengthen on our twisty-road strafe. And when we stopped for roadworks, you could tell they were sweating.

It’ll be interesting to see how they fare on a racetrack.

Does the A35 perform as you'd expect?

From a standing start, the A35 is so close to the old A45 in terms of all-paw grip and go – complete with that rasping, crackling backing track – that you could almost wonder whether the upcoming A45 has room to move. But as the 225kW A35 moves up its gear set, you realise it doesn’t quite have the knackers to truly thrill like the outgoing 280kW/475Nm A45 does.

With identical gearing to the old A45, the A35 still has something left at the top end of second gear in really tight corners, but you’re better to upshift to third and surf its mid-range torque. However, with an identical 1480kg kerb weight to the W176 A45, combined with an output deficit of 55kW/75Nm, you can understand why the A35 doesn’t feel as feral.

For many people, that’s exactly what they’ll want out of their AMG hot hatch. A little more refinement mixed with a little less showboating. That’s what the A35 excels at – a sharp, finessed driving experience blended with enough fruity muscle to keep you satisfied, for a not-so-stratospheric price.

But if everything Tobias Moers – CEO of AMG – has been quoted as saying is true, then can you imagine how great the new A45 could be? All the A35’s tangible body-strengthening and dynamic enhancements, matched with a new all-wheel-drive system, a new eight-speed dual-clutch transmission, and something in the order of 300kW and 500Nm.

Now that could be a hot hatch for the ages.

2019 Mercedes-AMG A35 price and specifications

Price: $68,000 (estimated)

Engine: 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder

Power: 225kW at 5800rpm

Torque: 400Nm at 3000-4000rpm

Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch, AWD

Fuel use: 7.4L/100km