2019 Mercedes-Benz A220 Sedan Review: Raising The Entry-level Bar

2019 Mercedes-Benz A220 Sedan Review: Raising The Entry-level Bar

An entry-level car in a luxury automaker鈥檚 lineup should offer a solid blend of everything the company has to offer in a smaller, more affordable package. A buyer鈥檚 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鈥檛 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鈥檚 new design language on the CLS-Class, I wasn鈥檛 exactly sold on it. Now that I see the A-Class Sedan, though, I get it. In this instance, the design is well proportioned 鈥?the headlights and grille aren鈥檛 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鈥檚 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鈥?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 鈥渇loating鈥?screens up front don鈥檛 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鈥檚 switchgear to the dashboard, feels more expensive than the price belies.

I鈥檓 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鈥檚 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鈥檚 one of the most impressive I鈥檝e 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鈥檛 have the strongest motor, but it definitely makes the most of it. My tester鈥檚 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鈥檚 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.