A true family car with supercar level performance!
BHPian Ace F355 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
What I love:
- You are looking at a probable Unicorn AMG, from Indian context of practicality
- Hand-built furious M133 engine under AMG’s One-Man, One-Engine philosophy
- The way the engine growls, snarls, and pops when you want it to, yet cruises in a civil manner when you don’t.
- The grip — 4MATIC in this car gives great confidence in corners and daily driving.
- Firm, supportive AMG Performance seats that hug you during spirited drives.
- That feeling when you floor it past 2000 rpm and the turbo spools up like it’s launching you into next week.
What I don’t love:
- Ride is firm — really firm. Family notices. Potholes are not its friends.
- Fuel economy? Let’s just say its okay if you drive her nicely. But you didn’t buy her to drive like a granny did you? I end up filling her up more often than my fridge.
- Rear seat is fine for average size adults, but 6+ footers might complain on long drives.
- Average Looks – GLA 45 isn’t as appreciated as its other 45 siblings. To me, it looks brilliant though!
If you have seen my earlier ownership threads on the forum; you know I am a sucker for vehicles that combine practicality with some serious character.
My Ford Endeavour continues to be my go-anywhere mile muncher. But there was this itch — that one car you take out not because you need to go somewhere, but because you want to feel alive while doing it.
I wanted something that would have
- Supercar-baiting performance but without the supercar pothole anxiety.
- Keep me grinning as I run between gearshifts at redline…
- Still carry family + luggage without the drama of a low-slung sports car. I certainly didn’t want a crore rupee see-saw on our speed breakers.
- Understated looks — because not every day do you want your neighbors to think you probably have joined a drug cartel.
I scouted between all kind of performance vehicles, test drives, heart-to-heart talks with my inner child, and a few bank balance reality checks…
And finally I happened to pick up this beauty, it has been a few moons now, and in less than a year, we have already done 10,000+ kms on this car. That’s not a “garage queen” number, which typically such performance cars are associated with. That’s love, expressed in road trips, late-night gedis, and the occasional bursts of speed that could result in “oops, sorry officer, didn’t realise how fast I was going.”
During my hunt, I went though various options including but not limited to Mercedes C43, BMW M340i, BMW Z4, Audi S5, Porsche 718 as well as Macan R4. There were a bunch of Jaguar XK-R, Audi RS5, two W205 C63S and one BMW M3 checked upon as well.
I already had a taste of BHPian nkapoor’s pre-facelift CLA 45 AMG, back in 2019/20.
We have had some good time in that car, but the ground clearance was so horrible that it prevented the full exploitation of the potential of that car. nkapoor ended up selling it because of the low GC, it was horrible experience to just get the car out of the residential society, and over minor speed humps with scraping its underbelly, and this resulted in very low usage of the car.
The more I looked, it became apparent that I would like to have decent GC to be a non-negotiable condition in my hunt.
The GLA 45 was the only car that ticked all boxes of my checklist. This is a crossover (well, it’s a hatchback really and truthfully) with the soul of a track focused sportscar, wrapped in just enough practicality to fool your in-laws.
After a long search, I found this single-owner example, well maintained, accident free and absolutely bone stock. The car came with a full MB service history, I got it checked at my local Mercedes dealership, and they ran a fine comb through it. This PDI confirmed the car was mechanically sound and hadn’t been subjected to any dubious things in the past.
When I saw this car in person, I immediately knew this was the unicorn I was looking for all this while. Some cars whisper. Some cars shout. And then there’s the Mercedes-AMG GLA 45 — the one that quietly slips into traffic like any other hatchback… until you bury the throttle and it turns into a caffeinated cheetah on roller skates.
From a distance, this car could be “just another entry-level small Mercedes.” But the trained eye will spot the giveaways — the deeper bumper intakes, hunkered down squat stance, exhaust tips, and those Recaro bucket seats inside that say, “I am not here to ferry groceries, I am here to rearrange your vertebrae.”
Jokes asides, the comfort of these seats is so deceptive, that you would realize Mercedes continues to use these seats all the way from 2013 AMG models to the latest AMG missile, the 2025 GT63…
The exterior is in clean Cirrus White — perfect for hiding the dust of North Indian drives and the occasional highway insect massacre. Black interiors with red sprinkled over bits and pieces complete the stealth-meets-sport vibe.
And after 10k+ km in under a year, I can say this — it’s not just tolerable as a daily driver. It’s addictive.
Here is a couple of pics from the day we got the car delivered to us.
Key to my happiness now looks like this!
Tech Specs and Exterior Design
Yeah, this car is an epitome of you just bought an expensive engine and drivetrain… and got rest of the car free with it! 
- The M133 is a 2.0L turbocharged inline-4 producing 375 bhp & 475 Nm torque, mated to AMG’s SPEEDSHIFT DCT 7-speed. 0–100 km/h in 4.4 seconds… and I can tell you it hits the ton within the stated time every single launch.
- This isn’t your slammed down AMG C63ish sedan scraping on every speed breaker. The GLA’s 168 mm ground clearance (15mm lower than regular GLA, and to put it in context 40mm higher than an A45 S) means it can tackle most Indian roads without turning my face into a cringe emoji .
- Park it next to a regular GLA, and only enthusiasts will know what’s lurking beneath.
- Honestly there is sufficient space for the wife, kids, and the occasional airport luggage run.
On the exterior, the GLA 45 AMG doesn’t scream boy racer. It’s more like that quiet guy in the room who can bench press twice your weight. At first glance, it’s just another GLA. But to the trained eye, the AMG bits stand out like Easter eggs.
Front twin-blade grille with deeper bumper slots the AMG badge — subtly announces “I am not your average Mercedes”. Large air intakes in the bumper with black accents, feeding that hungry M133. Bi-xenon headlamps with LED DRLs form a neat eyebrow.
Car rides on 19-inch AMG alloys with a twin-spoke design — machine-finished faces with matte titanium inners. Wrapped in Yokohama Advan Sport V105 rubber (235/45 R19). Although while 19-inch wheels look gorgeous, you have to be super careful on bad roads.
Side profile is gorgeous to my eyes, especially because of the squatted stance.
In the rear, AMG exhaust tips — yes, they are real. Although each side has singular pipe integrated into a diffuser-style bumper based exhaust tips
What I like about the exterior design is the fact that it has very balanced proportions.
Continue reading BHPian Ace_F355’s review for more insights and information.
