Mercedes A-class facelift review, test drive

What’s it like inside?

Still a very good blend of luxurious and sporty, with materials of the highest quality all around you. The theme is all-black as before, but it’s livened up by a clever use of colours and textures. For example, all the leather is double stitched in a contrasting colour, while the part-leather, part-fabric seats have really cool colourful inserts. Finally, there’s a beautiful soft-leather texture on the dashboard, onto which the chrome AC vents are fixed. The steering wheel is the one from the CLA and C-class, as are the dials with their new colour trip computer screen between them. What we really love though is that Mercedes has upgraded the COMAND system to the latest version, and housed it inside a nice, high-resolution seven-inch screen; the small old unit looked and felt cheap to operate.

As before, this being a hatchback, space is not one of its strengths. The front seats are snug and sporty with a single-piece backrest, you sit quite low down, and finding an ideal driving position is a little tricky if you’re not too tall. At the back, the bench is carved out into two individual bucket seats, and even if you do find the legroom, headroom and width sufficient, the small windows and tall sills detract from any sense of space. Similarly, the view forward is marred by the large front seats, and the already poor rear visibility is made worse by wing mirrors that have very poor reach. Moreover, the boot isn’t the biggest and most of it is taken up by the space-saver spare tyre, which limits its ability on weekend road trips.

On the equipment front, you’re treated to quite a lot of stuff – Dynamic Select drive modes, engine stop-start, LED headlamps, paddle shifters, six airbags, sat-nav and a sunroof. That said, only the driver’s seat is powered, there’s no automatic climate control, and while there is a rear-view camera, there are no parking sensors.