Did you know? The Australian A45 S DOESN'T have a particulate filter? The AMG A45 S uses the world's most powerful four-cylinder production petrol engine! How unhinged is this car? Paul gets behind the wheel to see if the all-new 2020 Mercedes-AMG A45 S Edition 1's bite matches its bark!
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:43
Interior: 03:04
Infotainment: 04:25
Features: 11:47
Practicality: 12:25
On the Road: 17:22
Drag Race: 18:17
Verdict: 23:10
Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/review/2020-mercedes-amg-a45-s-edition-1-review/
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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@MercedesBenz @mercedesbenzau @Mercedes-AMG
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:43
Interior: 03:04
Infotainment: 04:25
Features: 11:47
Practicality: 12:25
On the Road: 17:22
Drag Race: 18:17
Verdict: 23:10
Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/review/2020-mercedes-amg-a45-s-edition-1-review/
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you! #mercedesamg #review #a45
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
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Paul Maric:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
@MercedesBenz @mercedesbenzau @Mercedes-AMG
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 I'm Paul and I am seriously excited to drive that car behind me. It's the new Mercedes-AMG A45 S.
00:06 On paper, it has some incredible stats and I want to see if that engine lives up to its name.
00:11 It's the most powerful four-cylinder production engine ever put into a road car.
00:15 This here is the Edition 1, so the pricing kicks off from just over $93,000 for the A45 S.
00:20 Edition 1 is about $8,000 extra. Today we're going to do a detailed review plus a drag race against
00:26 the cheaper A35. Now if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, use the time codes
00:31 up there or if you're on YouTube just scroll down to the description where you'll see the links.
00:35 I'd also love it if you could hit subscribe and also press the bell icon that's going to notify
00:39 you every single time we publish a new car review. Let's talk exterior now. Up until recently,
00:45 all taxis in Melbourne were this color, yellow, but Mercedes-Benz calls it sun yellow and I think
00:51 it actually works well here on the A45. We're going to start here with the bonnet. Have a look
00:54 at this. This has what they call a power bump, so it's like a little bit of a hump there. This
00:59 signifies the AMG model, but down here something new for the A45 is the Panamericana grille. That's
01:04 a 12-slat grille you're going to find on cars like the AMG GT and I think it really makes this car
01:09 stand out because it looks different to the A35 which sits beneath this. And then of course you've
01:13 got this whopping big logo there that works for things like radar and safety systems. Neatly
01:18 tucked away in here is an extra radiator. You'll see on the other side it's a blank, but here we
01:23 have an additional radiator for that whopping big four-cylinder engine. And then you have all of the
01:27 body kit that wraps around here. This section here is for the aero package. You can get this without
01:32 the aero package, so that gives you a more executive look. I think the aero package looks
01:36 pretty cool though because if you're spending this kind of coin on the car, you want everyone
01:39 to know exactly what it is. These headlights are also standard. These are multi-beam LEDs. It also
01:43 does the shut-off sequence where effectively if you've got a car in front of you, it's able to
01:47 have high beams running around it and also dipping for approaching traffic. So it's quite a clever
01:52 system. It works really well and it's good to see them fitting it as standard equipment to this car.
01:56 You know what? I'm not a fan of this though. The poor paint finish in that section up there.
02:01 Not really a good look on such an expensive car. Now have a look at this section right here. This
02:05 is the flared wheel arch and if you have a look at that from dead on, you can see that it's got a bit
02:09 of a haunch to it. The track of this car is actually 24mm wider. The wheel arches are 27mm
02:15 wider each side. So when this is following you in traffic, you're going to notice it standing out.
02:20 And then under here we have the matte black wheels that come standard with the Edition 1 package with
02:24 these whopper big brakes. Six-piston calipers and also 360mm rotor. Now seriously big size.
02:30 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres. 245mm wide all round as well. Have a look at this. You have the
02:35 Edition 1 decals. Kind of looks nice. Shows people how much extra money you're spending. And then
02:41 around the back here is where the rest of the aero package sits. So you've got this boot spoiler here.
02:45 Now this is a little bit flimsy. You'll notice when you actually close the boot that it sort of
02:50 moves around a little bit. So not really liking the look of that. These exhaust pipes are 90mm
02:56 in diameter. So the A45S comes standard with four of them. They're fake though, which is a bit
03:00 disappointing. And then the diffuser that sits down the bottom here. So it is a really good setup.
03:05 Let's talk about interior styling. You're buying a Mercedes-Benz. That means it needs to be premium
03:11 and they have absolutely nailed it here with the A-Class. The A-Class came out in Australia
03:15 standard with these 10.25-inch screens across the entire range. When you step up to the AMG model
03:20 though, they've really thrown the style book at it. I love the fact that with the Edition 1,
03:24 you're getting all of these extra sort of graphic highlights. You're getting the yellow stitching,
03:29 the wicked looking sports performance seats. You're getting this awesome steering wheel with
03:33 this Alcantara-esque material on it. And then the Edition 1 also gets Edition here under AMG. Flat
03:39 bottom there. And you have these cool LCD screens on either side of the wheel. I'm going to go
03:44 through those a little bit later on when we go for a drive, but this is kind of what sets this car
03:49 apart from the rest of the competitors in this segment. But how premium is that dashboard?
03:54 Let's get our hardness tester out. This is our durometer. It measures a hardness score from 0 to
03:58 100, where 0 is soft and 100 is super hard. I want to test out on that dashboard there. I'm going to
04:04 do both tiers plus the center console lid. Pop that down there. That's a 70. That's pretty good.
04:10 And we'll go to the lower tier now. Just under 70 there as well. What about the center console
04:17 lid? Let's give that a shot. About 40. That is fantastic. So yes, you are getting a premium
04:23 interior for the kind of money that you're spending for this car. Let's talk infotainment.
04:27 This is what really has me excited because I'm a bit of a tech buff and the Mercedes-Benz system
04:31 really sits at the top of the tier now in terms of functionality, usability and features. The old
04:36 command system was absolutely rubbish. I know a lot of people say they got used to it once they
04:40 owned the car, but every single time I drove a Mercedes, I just found it really confusing.
04:43 Nested menus and it was just really all over the place. So today I'm going to walk you through
04:48 the new MBUX. It's called the Mercedes-Benz User Experience and it all centers around these two
04:54 10.25-inch screens. We're going to focus on this one here. It's a touchscreen, so you can use the
04:58 touch functions to navigate through the screen and then you can also set different themes as well if
05:04 you want. So you can go from the fancy theme to an old school theme, which changes everything,
05:10 including your gauges. But for me, I like just sticking with the standard themes. You can also
05:14 then navigate the infotainment system down here. You've got a touchpad, which allows you to swipe
05:19 left and right, allows you to click and also write when you're putting in navigation destinations,
05:23 which I'll show you in a second. You have shortcut buttons to the side. This top one here activates
05:26 the 360 camera. That actually works really well. It's a very detailed camera and it gives you a
05:31 stack of different angles to work with. So very intuitive system and a good implementation.
05:35 If you've seen our other videos before, I'll often complain about low quality 360 cameras.
05:39 This is how they need to be done so you can actually use them. You then have a shortcut
05:43 button on the side for access to the car's settings. Underneath that, you have a favourites
05:47 button. You can set up anything you want in here and then every time you hit that, you'll be able
05:51 to quickly dive into those menus. And then finally, on the other side, you have access to telephone,
05:55 radio and maps as well. So let's jump into the telephone menu. I'll show you what that looks like.
05:59 So in the phone menu, you can connect directly via Bluetooth, then use voice recognition to give
06:04 commands to the car or you can hook up Apple CarPlay. It looks a bit nasty. So it's not a
06:09 widescreen Apple CarPlay system by the looks of it. It's sort of boxed into that window there.
06:14 I guess it kind of gives them room for you to access other functions. But in some of the
06:18 competitors in this segment, including BMW, it's actually full widescreen.
06:21 If we then jump back to the main menu, you have your radio functions. Now in here, you can select
06:26 FM/AM/DAB plus digital. It is an okay system. The only issue I have is when you're looking for radio
06:31 stations, you kind of have to scroll through an infinite amount of radio stations. It's not a
06:37 really quick system. You do have access to a search function, a bit hard to use while you're
06:41 moving, and then also a list function. But again, they're all big icons and it means that when
06:45 you're searching, you have to flick through quite a lot of stations before you can actually find
06:49 what you're after. Now in terms of media connectivity, you have USB-C ports littered
06:53 throughout the car. So that's the next generation of USB. You can get a converter like the one that
06:58 we're using here. You also have built-in media storage and the ability to stream over Bluetooth
07:02 and also internet streaming as well through your phone, which is handy to have. Now in the comfort
07:06 menu, this is where all the climate control functions are and also where you can go through
07:11 the energizing modes. Now the drive out to here was about an hour and a half and the car prompted
07:16 me to use the energizing comfort mode. And when I pressed vitality, it went through a 10-minute
07:22 selection of nice music and also the ability for the seat to move around and make it more
07:26 comfortable for me. So that is a nice thing to have. And refresh, which was interesting. It would
07:30 basically make it out like you're at sea and then start blowing cold air at you. Ambient lighting,
07:36 you can select from up to 64 LED colors inside the cabin here. Everything from standard hues
07:42 through to mixes as well. Now specific to the AMG models, it is optional on the A35 AMG, but
07:47 standard on the A45 is track pace. It is effectively an ability for you to enter track details into the
07:53 car. Some are also preloaded and it gives you metrics from up to 60 or 80 different data points
07:58 on the car. And you can download that information to see how you're doing as a driver. It'll collect
08:02 everything from engine revs to braking performance. It really is a useful tool to have if you do plan
08:07 on attacking track days. Jump along there to the AMG performance menu. This is where you're going
08:12 to see a lot of data on the car. So the engine menu gives you the power output, engine torque as
08:16 well, plus all your vital temperatures. You have a consumption menu, who really cares? You've then
08:21 got options for the vehicle. And in here, you also have a G meter, which you can get to display on
08:26 the menu in front of you, along with slip angles and what the suspension is doing on each corner
08:30 of the car. Now the individual configuration is pretty handy because if you want to have the car
08:35 loud, but not have the suspension too firm, you can simply set up the individual menu to make the
08:40 engine go into its dynamic mode, but to keep the suspension in comfort mode. And that's what I've
08:44 got it in at the moment. That way, when you're driving, you want to have a bit of fun. You can
08:46 flick this along once, it dials up individual mode, and then away you go. The next function
08:50 I want to walk you through here is Mercedes me. Mercedes me is the Mercedes application. It's
08:56 installed on your telephone. And if I open it up here, it allows me to dial up information about
09:01 the car, remotely start it, see the status of the car, remotely locate it, send map information to
09:06 the car. And it's very easy to set up. You log into the portal, put your VIN information in,
09:10 confirm it through the dealer. The other element of this system is the voice recognition system.
09:14 It actually works really well here. It's activated by saying, "Hey Mercedes," but I've disabled that
09:19 because every time we say Mercedes during this video, it tries to activate it. So I'm going to
09:23 push it here. Close the roller sunblind. I'm closing the roller sunblind. So you can see that
09:30 working there. But the other cool function is you can change LED interior colors while you're
09:34 driving. Change the interior LED color to red. Could you repeat your input, please? Change LED
09:42 color to red. Okay, I'm changing the color. Look, it generally works pretty well. Sometimes it won't
09:49 pick up your commands, but it is a useful system to have, especially if you need to put in navigation
09:53 addresses or call people with weird names. The navigation menu is a big step forward now as well
09:58 because it's a much faster system and much easier to use as well. So you can see here the processor
10:02 is super quick. You can see the traffic overlays on major roads as well. The input functions for
10:07 destinations are really clever now too. Over on the side here, you can go straight to parking
10:11 lots, to meals. And then if I click here, you can type in destinations. You can write them in using
10:18 the top of the pad here. But the interesting function I find here is the ability to say,
10:23 "I'm hungry." I'm hungry. Take me to a Chinese restaurant. So what it's doing now is looking up
10:30 Chinese restaurants nearby. And if I want to go to Heathcote Palace Chinese restaurant, all I do is
10:36 click that button up the top there. So it is a good integration of navigation into that voice
10:40 recognition system. Finally, let's have a look at the settings menu. What I like here is that there
10:44 are graphical highlights for all the functions here. So as I scroll through these, it changes
10:49 the overlay to tell me which setting I'm actually changing. So this is a clever feature because
10:54 sometimes you don't know what these symbols mean. If I jump over to the assistance menu,
10:58 it then goes even further there. And I like the fact that you can actually pick up some of the
11:01 traffic signs here as well. You can customize a lot of the safety systems built into this car
11:06 and vary the amount of intervention you're getting. So if you don't like the way that it
11:09 tugs at the wheel when you're leaving a lane, or the way that it tries to avoid leaving a lane
11:13 when you don't want it to, you can switch all of those systems off in a very intuitive way.
11:18 And finally, the good thing here as well is the owner's manual. It's all a graphical
11:21 representation. So built into the car, you can come in and find all the functions and
11:26 figure out what to do with them because there is so much to learn here. So I'll give you a quick
11:30 look at this. If I go here to tips at the fueling station, refueling the vehicle, it will give me
11:35 a lot of warnings because it's German about refueling your vehicle. But then it also gives
11:40 you quick start guides for things like adjusting the mirrors and other critical functions to being
11:44 able to hit the road and enjoy your new AMG. Enough about infotainment, let's have a look
11:48 at what you're actually getting with this car. Dual zone climate control, you're getting these
11:52 as well. I love the way they're designed. They really stand out. You can open and close them
11:56 just by twisting them. And then they have LED elements inside them. So whichever colour you
12:00 pick for the cabin, it's going to light up around there as well. Down here, you have
12:04 wireless phone charging. So you just slide your phone into there. It fits my big phone as well,
12:08 which is really good. You've also got a Burmester sound system. Now, what about safety?
12:11 AEB that works up to high speed. So that's over 200 kilometres an hour. It'll detect pedestrians.
12:17 This is the ducks nuts of AEB system. So if you are conscious about safety,
12:21 this is going to have you fully covered. A very nice looking sunroof there that you can look out
12:25 of. Let's talk about practicality and comfort. Where are you going to put your things? Well,
12:28 we know that your smartphone can be wirelessly charged. So that tucks in under there. But
12:32 what if you want to put it somewhere else? Well, it doesn't really fit anywhere else. It kind of
12:36 just gets wedged in there. It's not really a comfortable fit. What about bottles? Fits in
12:41 there nicely. That's no drama. And then in the door, you also have bottle storage. You then have
12:46 a centre console here. That's nice and deep, which is good. Another two USB-C outlets there as well.
12:51 And then a decent sized glove box where you can put little bits and pieces. And in terms of
12:56 comfort, it was about a one hour, 45 minute drive to get here this morning. And it is comfortable
13:02 but the seats are pretty hard. Keep in mind that the Edition 1 gets the performance seat. So this
13:06 is the ducks nuts of seats, so to speak. Thankfully, the ride is pretty good, so it makes up
13:10 for it. But the seats are just a little bit too firm. And in terms of the driving position, it's
13:14 pretty good. The steering wheel is the perfect size. It's plenty of room to rotate it. You've
13:17 got easy access to the pedals and all of your critical functions are easy to get to as well.
13:22 So from a driving perspective, this is a good place to be seated. So we're in the second row.
13:26 And have you noticed how dark it is in here? Let me flick our light on. That's because privacy
13:31 glass is standard. So that really chills out the cabin and makes it a private enclave.
13:36 What about legroom? It's actually not terrible. The last time I was in the back of an A-Class,
13:40 I could barely fit in here. So this is a sporty, sporty performance seat. Normally with those,
13:45 it means you have no legroom here for adults, but I've got pretty decent knee room. There isn't a
13:50 great deal of toe room though. That's the only drama. And I have noticed as well, there's actually
13:53 no grab handles anywhere in this car. So if you're going on a fast drive, your friend's just going
13:58 to have to hold onto their seatbelts. Now, what about the rest of this setup here? You've got
14:01 two air vents. And then in this slot right here, you've got storage for coins and things, but
14:06 another two USB-C outlets. Over here, we have a center armrest that pops out. Let's see if it fits
14:13 our bottles. Oh, look at that. It's beautiful. It's actually got a retractable arm on it,
14:16 which is great. And then in the door, you can fit another bottle in there. Tuck these away.
14:21 This is a 40/20/40 split folding seat. So I'll show you how that works in a second.
14:25 Also, fix on the two outboard seats. And then you'll notice here on the seats, they get that
14:29 yellow stitching. Gives that cabin the sporty feel. And then LED reading lights above your head
14:34 as well. Let's talk cargo space. So yes, it's not a GLS, but it still has a pretty decent cargo
14:41 arrangement. So you have 370 litres of cargo capacity available here. And then off to the
14:45 sides, you have storage for your reflective vests, because it is a German car and you need to have
14:50 that stuff. And then another nook on the side for your odds and ends. And then under here,
14:54 let me show you what is under here, because this is a pretty cool setup. The Burmester
14:58 sound system is backed up by a decent sized subwoofer that sits in here where a spare
15:02 tyre would normally be. Instead, you have a goo kit plus a compressor as well. So that will fill
15:07 a hole in the tyre should it happen. And then off to the side, you have an amplifier as well. So
15:12 it is a pretty compact space under there, but it gives us a bit more boot room.
15:15 Let's see how we go fitting everything in. Pop our laptop bag to the side.
15:19 Now, big suitcase. That fits beautifully like that. Now the seats fold in a 40-20-40 split
15:27 folding fashion. I'll show you what that looks like. This comes off fairly easily.
15:31 Now, all you do is give that a flick. You can see the 20 there and the 40 there.
15:37 And then this side as well. And that then expands to 1210 litres of cargo space.
15:44 As an engineer, I'm going to nerd out on you because I find this kind of stuff really
15:47 fascinating. What Mercedes-Benz has done is move this engine completely. So they've spun
15:52 it 180 degrees. The turbos used to be down the front here, but now they're all the way around
15:56 the back. You also get this cool badge, hand built by David Hoffman, a good German sounding
16:02 bloke. Strut tower brace up in the back there. The turbocharger is interesting because it's a
16:06 twin scroll unit, uses roller bearings. It has an electric wastegate instead of a pneumatic one.
16:10 Other cars that have that at the moment are the 992, 911. That turbocharger winds up to 2.1 bar
16:16 of boost. That's over 30 PSI. That is seriously insane. It'll do 169,000 RPM. I mean, the numbers
16:24 are just crazy. And that is what you need to make the world's most powerful four-cylinder
16:28 production engine. Now it is worth pointing out that the Australian A45S doesn't get a
16:32 petrol particulate filter. What is a particulate filter? Well, it traps particulates from the
16:37 exhaust. And then when it's full, it increases the exhaust temperature to burn them off.
16:41 They're pretty common in diesels. That should mean that we get a freer flowing exhaust with
16:45 more sound and perhaps a little bit more power. Now I've got my colleague Scott here to give me
16:49 a hand with some exhaust revving. Scott, fire it up. Not quite. Like it is louder,
17:03 but it's not cracking and popping like I was expecting it to. There is one secret here though,
17:08 and it's called a motion start. So when you're turning the car on, you hold one of the paddles
17:12 and then switch it on and it makes this sound here. It does a little bit of a burble. So if
17:18 you're in an underground car park, at least people are going to hear that you're driving the 45S.
17:22 Under the bonnet, 310 kilowatts of power, 500 newton meters of torque. That is some
17:32 serious business. One thing they've talked about a lot is the improvement in turbocharging.
17:37 There is virtually no turbo lag. So even in comfort mode, when you lean on the throttle,
17:41 it picks up beautifully and just takes away. There's just no waiting for anything. It doesn't
17:45 actually feel like a turbocharged car. It feels like it's got itself a supercharger under the
17:49 bonnet there and it's really just delivering everything you need as soon as you get on the
17:52 throttle. It's made into an eight speed dual clutch transmission. The A35 uses a seven speed
17:58 automatic and it's good for a zero to 100 run in 3.9 seconds. Now, how quick is that? Earlier
18:03 today, we had the chance to do a drag race and also test those figures at a drag strip. And we
18:08 also reeled in the A35, which sits beneath this to give you an idea of just how much quicker this
18:14 is. And here is Igor's quick transition swipe. Okay, it is time for us to drag race the A45S
18:20 against the A35. Pretty confident this one is going to win, but I could stand corrected,
18:26 so we'll see how we go. So in the car next to me, I have Scott, my colleague. He's going to jet off
18:32 at the same time. We're going to use launch control in both cars and we're going to go over
18:36 a quarter mile and then Igor, the video man, is going to stop it at 100 k's an hour so you can
18:40 see which one is quicker at that point. And then once again, we will reconvene at the end of the
18:44 quarter mile and we'll see what happens. You ready, Scott? Let's do it. Three, two, one, go.
18:51 All right.
18:53 This thing is unbelievably quick. Okay, we're about halfway through, 160 k's an hour, 170
19:05 and bang, there's the quarter mile. Oh man, this thing is absolutely astonishingly quick.
19:12 Okay, 12.2 second quarter mile at 185.9 k's an hour. Scott, how'd you go? What was your
19:19 quarter mile time? That was a 13.3 at 168.8 k's an hour. Okay, so this is over a second quicker
19:27 over the quarter mile, which is bloody impressive. And then zero to 100 in four seconds, dead flat.
19:34 That is some seriously impressive stuff from this car. I love the way it hooks up
19:38 and then the way it scrambles to get going. It is an absolute missile.
19:42 Surprisingly, when the A45 S is in comfort mode, the ride is incredibly soft. You can really just
19:51 cruise along and it's nowhere near as firm as I thought it was going to be. They've worked on
19:55 refining it. The last one was back jarring. It would dislocate your back if you hit a bump,
20:00 regardless of which drive mode it's in. So they've certainly taken on that feedback and
20:04 made this a much more pleasurable driving experience in comfort mode.
20:07 Now, Igor has just told me that he can barely hear my audio, and that is because there is so
20:13 much drone in this cabin. The tyres are picking up everything. We're only doing 100 kilometres
20:18 an hour on a course chip road here in the country, and I can barely hear anything. And I'm having to
20:22 yell to get everything across to you. I spent an hour and a half in the car this morning doing the
20:27 exact same thing. So it just isn't very pleasant that the tyres are really transmitting so much
20:32 noise into this cabin. Visibility out of the car is good. I can see clearly out the front there.
20:36 At the back, it isn't fantastic. It's quite a narrow window, especially if you've got passengers.
20:40 It's going to make it a little harder to see out of. The wing mirrors are also really small as well,
20:44 so you're not really getting much visibility out the side, but it does have blind spot monitoring
20:48 and you have a lane keeping assistant as well. Most of that stuff works fairly well.
20:52 So when you're done with all the boring driving, you flick this little knob around to Sport Plus,
20:56 immediately the adaptive dampers firm up,
20:59 and you know that the car means business because it's much louder out of the rear as well.
21:03 Let's roll onto the throttle here and dial into...
21:12 Man, that is quick! And it has got some serious barks out of that exhaust as well.
21:23 Oh my God! The way this piles on speed is ridiculous.
21:28 There is just no turbo lag there. And despite everyone saying that it's much quieter from in
21:37 here, it is making an absolute hell of a racket out of that exhaust with every single one of
21:44 these gear changes. I'm actually a little bit lost for words because this is seriously,
21:50 seriously quick. I'm having to fully concentrate on what I'm doing here because the car
21:55 is piling on speed like you would not believe.
21:58 It is actually almost too quick for a small car like this. I cannot believe it. What I'm not
22:05 liking though is how firm this suspension is in Sport Plus mode. It's kind of skipping across
22:09 the road as we pile into some of these corners. On a super smooth racetrack, it might be okay,
22:14 but out here, it's scaring the **** out of me.
22:18 Let's get a little bit nerdy here for a second with regards to the rear end.
22:22 It's quite special in this car because gone is the 50/50 setup. The old AMG A45 used to have
22:28 the ability to send up to 50% of torque to the rear, so it predominantly felt like a front-wheel
22:32 drive car. This, on the other hand, can send up to 100% of torque to the rear. And then on the two
22:37 rear wheels on the rear axle, you have multi-plate clutches that can then further distribute up to
22:43 100% of the torque that's going to the back to each wheel. That allows you to do drift mode.
22:48 Now, I'm not allowed to do that today, but here is some vision of drift mode in action.
22:52 And that all happens due to that clever mechanical torque vectoring system. So,
23:04 it is a clever setup and also is aided by the fact that it has a limited slip differential.
23:09 Oh, man. What a day. You can't see this on the camera right now, but it's almost pitch black.
23:23 We have been at it all day long, which is why some of this video is going to be jumbled around a bit.
23:27 So, A45 AMG. I had a cracking time driving it through the corners, but it felt a little bit
23:33 unhinged, and that's just because it's so fast and it is quite firm in that Sport+ mode. But it's
23:38 sort of got me thinking, it doesn't really have that emotion. It doesn't have that connection that
23:43 you kind of want to have with a car like this. And then I thought, well, for this kind of money,
23:48 what else are you getting? It is competing in a much higher price bracket. And two cars that I
23:52 bought that are pretty much the same money and in the same performance, like the Toyota Supra and
23:56 the Tesla Model 3 Performance, then I asked myself, would I buy those again or would I get
24:00 this? And I kind of would just get those. The Supra is not as quick in a straight line, but I
24:04 feel more engaged when driving it. And the Tesla is there for all that straight line fast stuff. So,
24:09 this is like a modern age supercar, but by making it as fast as they have, they've kind of taken
24:14 away a bit of that soul out of it. So, it is a little bit disappointing, and I just wish I could
24:19 get a little bit more out of it. But anyway, I hope you found this video useful. If you did,
24:23 please hit the like button and don't forget to subscribe, followed by the bell icon,
24:26 because that's going to tell you every single time we drive something different. We've had a
24:30 seriously long day, so we're going to hit the road. There's still another two-hour drive ahead of us.