Five years ago, many people did not expect that Mercedes-Benz would localize a coupe with the name of AMG. Because at that time, I am afraid that no one believed that Mercedes-Benz would put the Chinese market in such a high position, nor would it foresee the fierce competition of luxury brands in China many years later, let alone imagine the great changes in the entire automotive industry after that. Nowadays, the industry's magnesium lights have been focused on electrification and intelligence, and the attention to high-performance cars and even traditional luxury cars has been much lower. I used to think that the localization of this A 35 L was the beginning of the competition for niche products such as performance cars in China. However, within two years, Mercedes-Benz had to fully switch to electrification. Domestic "big toys" like the A 35 L can only become an isolated case after all. So how much value does it still have? Let's talk a little bit about it this time.
In fact, even if there is no tide impact of the "new four modernizations" (electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing), this car with the name of AMG itself carries too many dazzling labels: domestic, front-drive platform, extended version... In the eyes of many people, it is not so much an AMG as a magic change with an AMG label, and the pedigree is even more pure than the golf GTI. Some people even joked that this is a "pseudo-steel cannon" that will be "kicked out of the group chat" by the same circle.
However, aside from these so-called "emotional" factors, this A 35 L is still very capable of playing on the books, especially the most important driving force. The 2.0T engine and 7-speed dual-clutch transmission were imported from Germany. The 2.0T turbine, codenamed M260, features twin-scroll single-turbo technology that ensures low torque while also taking into account turbine responsiveness, as well as an electronically controlled pressure relief valve, variable valve lift, cast aluminum cylinder block, and more. 306 hp plus 400 N .m of torque guarantees a 100 km/h acceleration of only 4.9 seconds, and the maximum speed is also easy to reach the system limit of 250 km/h. Of course, squeezing out such a level of power also has a price, drinking No. 98 oil is not something that anyone can eat. With the front subframe, body-in-white and suspension all reinforced, as well as the standard front lip, flanking wind knife, diffuser and ducktail, a high-performance model should do the standard action, it basically did not fall.
However, compared to the "brush" parameter, it is clear that the advantages of electric vehicles are greater, and a more intuitive and unique experience is more meaningful. This is also the most powerful counterattack capital for fuel vehicles in the face of the impact of electric vehicles.
The power of this A 35 L will not be as unexpected as the electric car, from stepping on the accelerator to the emergence of power has a more obvious delay, and even in the cruising state suddenly to a kick Tip-in, the digital dashboard jump pin nearly half a second later, the gearbox reacted to full resistance. However, the force that has poured out since then is full of momentum, and the rhythm is clear, sonorous and powerful, and the momentum is huge, which is obviously not available to electric vehicles. Coupled with a thick and hoarse roar, combined with a rock-solid suspension, it feels like driving a large go-kart. After switching to the sport mode, the upshift action is more direct and rough, and every time the low gear switch feels like it has been kicked inexplicably.
Another advantage of this car is that the dynamic mode matching is very well done. The buttons on the left under the steering wheel quickly switch between automatic and manual modes, as well as turn off the start-stop system and even esp, and the knobs on the right side below quickly switch between anti-slip, comfort, sport, super sport and custom five dynamic modes. In addition to the 1st and 2nd gear shift impact in the comfort mode is still relatively strong, in most cases there is only a slight sense of frustration, basically to achieve the perfect balance of daily urban driving and occasional joy, with a more relaxed way to run the mountain road, but also to maintain a relatively smooth rhythm; the sports mode response is fast enough, the power reserve is abundant; in the super sports mode, the car will always be in a state of excitement like chicken blood, and the gear shift action punches the meat. The other three have a clear degree of differentiation in the rotational matching strategy at different speeds, and they are all done appropriately.
However, as a performance car, many details that affect the daily experience are still inevitable. For example, driving at medium and low speeds has a strong pulling feeling, and the speed retention after the pine oil can sometimes be as long as several seconds. This situation already exists in the ordinary version of the 1.3T A-class, and on the AMG version of the model, this setting will appear more reasonable. However, even in comfort mode, tip-in and then tip-out, it takes about a second or so to upgrade, which seems a bit too much.
The performance on the chassis was also outstanding. The first is steering. Due to the use of a variable gear ratio steering system, so from left to right to play only two and a half laps, in addition to the feel more calm, the experience of playing the direction is very close to the ordinary street car, the virtual control is reasonable, the steering wheel in the middle will not be too sensitive at the same time, the large angle steering when attacking the mountain can also be coped with, and the radius of the low-speed U-turn is also well controlled. The steering wheel ring is smaller, the play is more smooth, the strength is more moderate, but the degree of damping distinction between the middle position and the two sides of the fight is not very large, and the return speed after the large angle of the counter-attack is also a little slower, the mountain road is fine when sprinting, if it is a relatively ordinary road surface, it feels less refreshing.
The suspension is also a very typical hardcore style of AMG, at the expense of flexibility to obtain a strong support, in addition to barely absorbing a little bit of asphalt pavement fine vibrations, most of the vibration will be really transmitted to the bottom of the ass, accompanied by the rumbling noise that fills the entire carriage. Isolated between the two, there seem to be only four thin Pirelli P ZEROs. The use of such a tire is definitely a bloody cost - an A-class car uses a 235-tire wide 19-inch wheel, the interior is basically filled with huge perforated brake discs and calipers, and the flat rate is as low as an exaggerated 35%, at this time, I am afraid that the worry is not how hard the suspension is, but how likely the tire will be bulging when it is usually on the road.
And it is also thanks to these four tires, coupled with the greatly strengthened suspension, the body follows well when lightly steering, and the grip is extremely strong, as if the car is nailed to the road surface, and the roll when the daily road surface is turned down is also limited to the minimum amplitude. Although this is a timely four-wheel drive car based on the front-drive platform, as long as it is not on the track or turning off esp in the extreme state, the abundant chassis performance redundancy, so that you do not have the opportunity to push the head or tail in most cases, coupled with powerful and linear brakes, although the experience is not unique in many performance touring cars, but like a go-kart nailed to the track, the hardcore sense is also quite balanced.
Incidentally, let's talk about some of the functional issues of the car's active safety system. Although the price is as high as nearly 400,000, this A 35 L is more conservative in this regard. In addition to AEB brake assist, such as lane assist, blind spot monitoring, which are already very common in today's models below 300,000, are not served on this car, and even the cruise is only fixed speed, no adaptive function, which seems to be a bit unreasonable.
The only highlight in this regard is the parking assistance, from the ADAS classification point of view is the L1 level, the system can only control the steering wheel, the gear needs to switch by itself, and basically only suitable for the side orientation of the front and rear vehicles, can not identify the vertical position and the scratched parking space, it can be seen that the system is still mainly dependent on ultrasonic radar. In the process of stopping, the action of playing the steering wheel is relatively fast, but the fluency is general, and you can often hear the abnormal sound coming from the end of the steering stroke, but the path planning of the stop-in and stop-out process is still very good, and the distance between the front and rear vehicles and the distance between the sides after the stop is also well controlled.
Let's talk a little bit about the static experience. Needless to say, the gorgeous design and materials of the interior are not to be said, and there is a rich choice of riot atmosphere lights, and the bottom of a 200,000-plus A-class car can have this configuration, except for Mercedes-Benz, which basically cannot find a second home. After the AMG, there are more perforated pedals, black and red colored leather, a lot of red line decoration, and the flat-bottom steering wheel has also been replaced with a more delicate style with the AMG logo, and the places that can be seen and touched by the naked eye are in place. In terms of ergonomics, although the sitting posture is limited to the basic model and cannot completely lower the H point, the highly wrapped barrel chair still creates enough combat atmosphere, and the open front view can clearly see the two raised rib lines of the front cover.
The few things in the front row that are worth complaining about come from the complex cockpit human-machine interaction. The main problem lies in the two small touch screens on both sides of the steering wheel. This design can save valuable steering wheel space, use more than the simple physical button function, support left, right, up, down direction of the stroke operation, it looks more exquisite, but the actual use is not easy to get started, because the touch screen area is very small, sensitive and high, and located in the finger is easy to touch, so it is easy to accidentally touch. And the menu bar of the dashboard is also too much choice, almost copying most of the options in the central control screen system, and the system level lacks some necessary screening and integration (such as media and radio can be fully integrated), so this area has to be explored for a long time to get used to.
Although the trackpad is exquisite and has many commonly used shortcuts, the same high-frequency functions such as navigation and telephone are arranged on the right side of the trackpad with a bulge because of their good looks, and the convenience is somewhat reduced. More importantly, compared with the large number of new cars flocking to the central control screen today, the design of the trackpad still lacks intuitiveness in operation. Of course, this is related to the time of the birth of the prototype car, and today's new S-class and C-class have kept up with the trend and replaced the big screen.
The back row is basically the same as the ordinary A-class, the performance is obviously not as powerful as the front row, the filling material is somewhat hard, and the sitting posture is also a little straight, the headrest and the upper half of the seat are slightly forward, so when sitting up, you will often involuntarily move your hips forward, and you will be more tired after a long time. The length of the cushion also makes it difficult to fully support the entire thigh. After the legroom has been lengthened, the performance is decent, at least stronger than many "home-grown" European cars.
summary:
No matter how critical you are about the car's background, origin, and identity, it is undeniable that its dynamic performance does not insult the gold-painted sign of AMG. The dynamic performance of full momentum, hardcore and powerful is the biggest feature of the AMG car series, although it has a hint of modified car flavor, but the overall adjustment of all aspects is still very balanced, it can be said that it can be written and martial.
400,000 can buy a "AMG-made" high-horsepower 4WD, which is enough to make many people who still have a little delusion about JDM shut up. To know that many "keyboard man" is still touting STi, the original factory was only 280 horsepower sold to 480,000. But now at the same level of performance, the cost performance can exceed it, and only the original imported Audi S3. And I think that in the foreseeable future, such a high-priced domestic fuel performance car, I am afraid it will be difficult to have again. That is to say, this domestic AMG will most likely be an "orphan product". And it itself has enough playability, and those "silly" "electronic toys" to distinguish between the qualitative. After all, not everyone is qualified to buy a Porsche or even a Ferrari directly. So, why does its existence have no meaning?
Wen | Vedic
Figure | Veto
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