2019 Mercedes-Benz A220 Sedan

2019 Mercedes-Benz A220 Sedan

An entry-level car in a luxury automaker's lineup should offer a solid blend of everything the company has to offer in a smaller, more affordable package. A buyer's first experience with a brand should convince them to stick around as time goes on, and as promotions and pay raises pop up. By that standard, the outgoing Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class was garbage. While the price was right, its coupe-like roof made the rear seats uncomfortable for grown adults, and low-quality interior materials punctuated its ho-hum design. It wasn't a product that made you want to stick around. That all changes with the 2019 Mercedes-Benz A-Class. While there is a new CLA-Class on the way, the A-Class now stands as the least expensive way to slide into a new Merc, and it rocks. Consider the bar raised for everyone. When I first saw Mercedes-Benz's new design language on the CLS-Class, I wasn't exactly sold on it. Now that I see the A-Class Sedan, though, I get it.

In this instance, the design is well proportioned -- the headlights and grille aren't cartoonishly large or small, and the silhouette promises more space than the cramped CLA-Class ever offered. Even the trunk is suitably sized for a family's worth of groceries or enough wreaths to make a two-story home sufficiently festive. 2,600 AMG Line styling package, which adds sharper angles in the bumpers, a slightly lower suspension and the stunning diamond-block grille. 500. Consider this an early warning about the A-Class' price: It may start low, but if you want to get fancy, things are going to get expensive in a hurry. Whereas the outgoing CLA-Class used an impressive variety of low-quality materials inside, the A-Class looks and feels twice as expensive. The dashboard makes clever use of layering, so that the "floating" screens up front don't look tacked on. The only bad plastics that I can find are located in places normal people would never touch, like the bottom of the transmission tunnel. Everything else, from the door's switchgear to the dashboard, feels more expensive than the price belies.

I'm not the biggest fan of piano black trim, which attracts fingerprints like sugar attracts ants, but it still looks premium. 1,450(!) red leather, which is a little racy for a non-performance car. Visibility from those seats is also excellent, with plenty of rearward sightlines through the aft glass (something the CLA-Class lacked in spades) and barely-there blind spots. The rear seats offer leagues more headroom than the CLA-Class, and there's sufficient legroom for a six-foot-tall passenger to feel comfortable behind a six-foot-tall driver. 310, the A-Class can be equipped with a 64-color ambient lighting system, and it's one of the most impressive I've ever used. In addition to letting me set my color from a spectrum wheel, the system also offers predetermined animated color schemes that flow through multiple colors. It will be the first thing every passenger talks about, guaranteed. For as much wow factor as it supplies, the price is right.

The A220 doesn't have the strongest motor, but it definitely makes the most of it. My tester's 2.0-liter turbocharged I4 puts out 188 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque, sent to all four wheels by way of a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission (front-wheel drive is available, too). All that torque makes for strong starts, and while the transmission's low-speed antics can be a little on the clunky side, shifts at speed are plenty smooth. When it comes time to accelerate, lower gears are called up with haste. There are drive modes on offer, but I find them unnecessary. The car is best left in its standard Comfort mode, which offers the right kind of throttle sensitivity and shift performance. Eco short-shifts too much for my tastes, and Sport takes things too far in the opposite direction. There are shift paddles behind the wheel, but those are probably best left for whatever hardcore AMG variant arrives later.

The steering is the right kind of tight, and the AMG Line package's brakes are grippy, but the pedal isn't so sensitive that heads will bob at every red light. Things are equally peachy on the handling front. The ride is composed, but not overly uncomfortable, even with my tester's 19-inch wheels and thin 225/40R19-series Pirelli Sottozero winter tires. It feels pretty darn close to my Volkswagen Golf, actually. It doesn't feel as bouncy as editor Steven Ewing suggested in his first drive, but I also don't have experience with a front-wheel-drive variant for comparison purposes, so I suggest test driving both if you're at the dealer. Some of that shine disappears on the economy front, though. While the stop-start system didn't shake the cabin with every restart (some weren't felt at all), my tester's AWD layout likely ate into fuel economy a bit. According to the trip computer, I averaged about 22 miles per gallon in the city and just under 30 mpg on the highway. That's a far cry from the CLA-Class' EPA-estimated 24 mpg city and 32 highway with all-wheel drive (24 city, 37 highway with FWD).