Mercedes-AMG A45 becomes faster, more expensive

The Mercedes-AMG A45 will become $2200 more expensive when the facelifted model arrives in February – but it won’t be its maker taking that entire surcharge.

Now priced from $77,900 plus on-road costs, the 2.0-litre turbo A45 now boasts boosted outputs of 280kW and 475Nm, rising 15kW/25Nm on the outgoing car.

It’s enough, along with shorter third to seventh gears inside the seven-speed dual-clutcher, to lower the claimed 0-100km/h sprint from 4.6 seconds down to just 4.2sec. No coincidence it passes the Audi RS3’s 4.3sec claim with this update.

Buyers won’t care about the fuel consumption hike from 6.9 litres per 100 kilometres to 7.3L/100km, however the Australian government does: originally the A45 ducked under the Luxury Car Tax-free threshold of $75K for cars that use less than 7.0L/100km, however the new model passes neither requirement.

It means the A45 will now be stung by the expensive-car tax.

AMG has also worked to address ride quality criticism of its original hot-hatch by making adaptive suspension standard with the update.

Previously unavailable at any price, the new damping system works with a new AMG Dynamic Select function. The four modes – Comfort, Sport, Sport+ and Race – alters throttle, transmission points and sound in addition to behaviour to bumps.

Comfort now decouples the transmission when cruising between 60km/h and 160km/h, for example, as well as hopefully being soft enough for around town cruising. The previous fixed dampers certainly were not

Sport turns off the stop-start system, firms up the suspension and makes the engine sound “more throaty”. And so it goes up from there, though an Individual mode can also bundle your favourite settings, such as loud engine with softer suspension.

As with overseas markets, AMG Dynamic Plus with an electronically locking, mechanical front limited-slip differential will be optional for our market.

Full specification details of the facelifted A45 will be announced when the vehicle arrives at local Mercedes-AMG dealerships in January.