Instrumented Test
When the BMW X3 and the Mercedes-Benz GLK launched, they were slightly funky utes at what was then the small end of the luxury-SUV spectrum. Each took a moment to find solid footing—the BMW in its second generation and the GLK at its midcycle refresh—and each now come at prices that leave room for smaller, less expensive newcomers. BMW threw its X1 into that breach for 2013, offering up a decidedly wagon-oid experience in a package that looks like a Bavarian Subaru Forester. Mercedes has responded with the GLA250, a turbocharged hatch-on-stilts built on the same bones as the CLA-class.
From the nose, the GLA looks fully Benz modern, featuring a blunt, upright prow, swept-back headlights, and the all-important emblem centered proudly in the two-bar grille. From the rear? It’s just a hatchback, one with massive, protruding taillights that look like symmetrical cybernetic boils. As with the B-class Electric Drive, the chrome bar meant to tie the taillamps together instead appears a bit like aftermarket kit. The rear is where this car’s otherwise handsome exterior terminates with a whimper.
We once ran across a German who described an interior as “spartaneous.” While our test car featured the optional interior upgrade with a fancy, top-stitched brown-leather dash pad, the spartaneousness—to coin an even non-wordier word—of this cheap-seats Benz interior shines through, as it does with the GLA’s platform siblings. (Even the brand’s COMAND infotainment system, optional on the GLA250, still isn't as intuitive as Audi’s MMI or BMW’s iDrive, and the user-interface design continues to resemble a junior-college design project.) It’d take a few more hides—and a higher grade of plastic—to raise the GLA’s cabin to C-class levels of specialness.
Of course, the embiggened C now starts at $41,325 and the GLK350 at $38,825. The GLA begins at $34,225. Seventy-one, ah, C-notes will buy a man some quantity of plastic and leather. Benz’s tagline for this vehicle is “Our smallest SUV is the next big thing. (We don’t make a next-best thing.)” When it comes to the interior, that claim might be stretching the truth just a smidge. A Buick Encore may not have the fancy leather dash-topper, but its innards feel less hollow. More directly, although the aging X1 hails from an era when BMW still wasn’t doing fancy cabins, the GLA feels more substantial.
Featuring a 208-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder pushing power through a drama-free seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, our all-wheel-drive GLA scooted to 60 mph in 6.4 seconds and circled the skidpad at 0.87 g. What those numbers suggest is just about what you get—easy entry onto freeways, paired with enough passing power and agility to dice through the minivan van squad en route to the lacrosse field. Where the BMW feels stout, muscular, and taut, content to shoulder-check its way through a corner, the Mercedes is more apt to tiptoe.
Its numbers aren’t far off those of its sedan sibling—only one-tenth slower to 60, two-tenths slower through the quarter-mile, and three-hundredths of a g less grippy around our 300-foot-diameter circle. The 70-to-0-mph stopping distance of 155 feet warrants autobahn-worthy accolades, but the pedal went soft after four or five stops and our tester noted moderate fade. So it stops well, as long as you don’t ask it to do so too often.
The thing with the GLA is that it has no particular party favors. It’s a functional, simple runabout that happens to wear the three-pointed star and is priced accordingly. While bigger-brother GLK migrated into the world of real Benzes, the GLA and its platform-mates are tasked with holding important, ever-shifting ground: the conquest-customer beachhead. With the new Lexus NX and Audi’s Q3 now here, luxury aspirants are suddenly deluged with choices. If you’re hell-bent on an entry-luxe small ute, the GLA is a decent choice, but our inner rationalists might posit this pertinent question: Wouldn’t you be as ably served by a Volkswagen GTI?
