Mercedes benz A 250 sport on the road

The A 250 is powered by a direct injected, turbocharged 2.0 litre petrol inline-four, producing 155kW of power and 350Nm of torque.It’s a ripper of an engine and, thanks to the deletion of the centre silencer, sounds rorty. Peak torque arrives early, and there’s loads of pulling power below 2500rpm.The real party begins though when you engage Sport mode and wind the tachometer past 4000rpm. An overboost function delivers a 10kW bump in peak power for 30 seconds at a time, making the A 250 Sport a 165kW machine.Acceleration can be surprisingly ferocious, and in Sport mode the throttle response is razor-sharp. There’s very little turbo lag, and power delivery is more linear than some other turbo four-pots of recent experience.

The A 250 Sport comes standard with a seven-speed twin-clutch automated manual, dubbed 7G-DCT by Mercedes-Benz. There’s no manual option in Australia, but with the 7G-DCT, there’s arguably no need for one.Gearshifts are smooth and take-off from standstill is on par with the latest VW range of DSG gearboxes. When in Sport mode, the 7G-DCT rips through the gears with tremendous speed.We found though that it can sometimes be caught out with the wrong gear pre-engaged, but the result is just a slightly longer gearshift.In manual mode, it’s a delight. With the wheel-mounted paddles, you can race through the ratios, and, on downshifts (in Sport mode), with a perfectly matched throttle-blip.According to Mercedes, the A 250 Sport will hit 100km/h from standstill in just 6.6 seconds, which is pretty brisk for a hot hatch.(It also returns an average fuel consumption of 6.6 l/100km)