Mercedes-AMG A35 Vs A45 S Drag Race: How Much Speed Does £15k Buy You?

The Mercedes-AMG A45 S is - as we’ve said many times before - staggeringly fast. It’s a hot hatch that’s faster than many supercars, but Mercedes does make you pay dearly for that potency - it starts at a wallet-destroying £50,570 in the UK.

Is that worth it when the A35 is almost exactly £15,000 less? After all, the ‘lesser’ AMG hatch isn’t exactly slow, with 306bhp making for a still very fast 4.7-sec 0-62mph time.

The all-wheel drive system is more sophisticated in the A45, of course (no Drift Mode for you, A35 owners), but in pure straight-line performance terms, you might wonder what £15k buys you. To find out, Car Expert put the two cars on the same drag strip.

Before the face-off, the Australian publication tested each car individually to see how close to the claimed figures they could get, and also tried runs in the A45 S with and without launch control. We won’t drop any spoilers, but suffice to say the system is definitely worth using if you want a swift getaway.

Which one of the two would you go for?