Mercedes Benz CLA 45 AMG

The word “AMG” stirs immense emotions in the mind of millions of car enthusiasts across the globe. The “AMG line of merc’s represents a class of fire breathing and tire shredding performance car’s with the cheapest one starting at an eye watering $60,000 and easily climbing up to the $80,000 mark with options. Besides the initial colossal acquiring cost, the AMG’s are expensive to maintain are heavy on gas and rapidly depreciate. Well that puts the AMG beyond the reach of most mortals. There is a general rule in place that the more horse power a car has, the fewer points it scores on gas mileage. Well, we can throw this notion out of the window now as Mercedes Benz have now arrived with the $ 47,450 CLA 45 AMG, a 355 BHP beast of an engine and still churning out a combined gas mileage figure of middle to upper 20’s. 

The “Coupe Light A Class” or CLA as we’ll hear more commonly is based on the popular “A” class platform which has a significant presence in Europe but we are yet to see it here in the U.S. The CLA 45 AMG starts life as a modest CLA 250, apparently the cheapest car in the Mercedes Benz lineup and now represents the cheapest in Merc’s AMG arsenal of nukes. In just a smudge under $50,000 you not only get an immensely handsome looking “AMG” with a great interior but also the bragging rights of owning the most powerful 4 cylinder engine in the world capable of doing 0-60 miles in 4.4 seconds!!! That is serious sports car territory. The handcrafted 2.0L turbo Direct Injection 4-cylinder engine is generates an impressive 332 lb-ft of torque at just 2,250 rpm making a major chunk of that 355 BHP usable in normal driving conditions. Since this essentially is a turbo charges four cylinder engine, it won’t quiet sound like the manlier V8’s and V’12 in the AMG lineup but the performance exhaust helps beef up the exhaust note & even spits out an occasional crackle sound on upshifts which is really rewarding. It comes with a 7 speed speedshift automatic transmission and unfortunately there is no option for a stick shift. The flappy pedals behind the steering wheel work really well in the manual mode and the car won’t shift gears automatically unless the engine rev’s breach the 5000 RPM mark. 

Another great feature that the CLA 45 offers is the 4 MATIC all-wheel drive which enables the car to be front wheel drive during normal driving conditions, but can send upto 50% of the power to the rear wheels if the need be. As far as room is concerned, this is a car for two as there isn’t much space in the rear. It can accommodate kids but the sloping roofline in the rear will make it uncomfortable for adults above 5’8’’. A fully loaded version will set you back by as much as $70,000 on road. My suggestion, just get the $450 performance exhaust and the $500 performance leather and alcantara steering wheel and call it a day.

The CLA45 AMG is new, fast, economical, exciting and really rewarding to drive. Even though its just a 4 cylinder engine, it does uphold its AMG DNA. If you are in the market for a CLA 45 AMG, then you might also want to look into the Audi S4 which offers a stick shift or the BMW 335i. I would personally choose it over the beamer, give a long hard thought to the Audi, and then buy the AMG.