It wasn't a great way to start life with a new ride. Flat and uninspiring aren't terms you'd normally use to describe a 250 hp and 340 Nm hatchback, but the Ford Focus ST I'd just taken delivery of felt very much that, like a can of warm soda missing the fizz. Downright pedestrian, actually.
The test mule I'd returned in the morning before heading off to collect the ST had everything to do with it. If anything was able to make a decent hot hatch feel absolutely tepid, then it would be an even hotter hatch. Which is precisely what the Mercedes-Benz A 45 AMG happened to be.
Alright, so it wasn't cricket comparing both given the pricing difference, but that didn't stop my mind from playing the inadvertent Top Trumps, simply because it could and chose to. It took days before some semblance of quick was finally felt on the ST, longer in the case of drive dynamics.
Even now, long after the music has stopped, the tune conjured by the range-topping model of the W176 A-Class range is still playing in the head. Affalterbach's first proper hot hatch foray has been that rememberable, and I'm not the only one in the team who thinks so.
The full report and photo gallery on the A 45 AMG here.
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