A45 AMG set to power up

The facelifted A45 AMG, due later in 2015, will recapture its title as the hot hatch kilowatt king.

That's the promise of Cristian Enderle, AMG's director of powertrain development. Speaking at the recent launch of the new Mercedes-AMG C63, Enderle confirmed that despite tougher competition, AMG intended to offer a class-leading power output for the new A45 AMG.

Audi's forthcoming RS3 has bumped the current A45 off top spot, offering a 270kW/465Nm 2.5-litre turbo five-cylinder. It is also expected that VW will give the green light to the 298kW Golf R400 concept that was shown at the Beijing Motor Show in 2014.

When asked what output could be expected from the new A45 AMG, Enderle smiled and said: “whatever the competition has, plus five horsepower.”

Pushed on how AMG can guarantee that when its opposition has new cars in the pipeline, Enderle said: “We know our competition quite well; we know what they are doing today [so] we can estimate what is possible for them to do.

“To be very sure that we have more horsepower than the competition, maybe the result is we have more than 10 horsepower or 20 horsepower more than them.”

Even if the Golf R400 fails to make production, Enderle's words would suggest we can expect at least 280kW from the new A45, an incredible figure from a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine.

At its launch, the current A45's 265kW output seemed like science fiction; now it appears that it is just the beginning.