Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
The Mercedes-Benz A220.
- The 2019 Mercedes-Benz A220 is an entry-level four-door in the luxury carmaker's A-Series lineup, which has only recently hit US shores.
- The nearly $50,000 car I tested was packed with performance extras and technology.
- Budget-minded buyers might look elsewhere, but the A220 is fun to drive, easy on gas, and a great introduction to the Mercedes way of life.
- It's one of the best small sedans I've driven, and that's why it's a 2019 Car of the Year runner-up.
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Editor's note: Business Insider will name its 2019 Car of the Year on November 23. Each day this week, we're taking another look at the five vehicles that were runners-up selected from a pool of 16 finalists. Thus far, we've named the Lamborghini Urus, Nissan Leaf SL Plus, and Cadillac XT4. Our fourth runner-up is the Mercedes-Benz A220. You can read our full 2019 Car of the Year coverage here.
Mercedes-Benz has been selling cars in the US for decades, but until quite recently, Americans were denied the rinky-dink A-Class vehicles that Mercedes had delivered elsewhere on the globe.
The A-Class was created in 1997. I saw my first one in the early 2000s - I'm pretty sure it was a Brazilian-made car that had been sold in Mexico and had made its way to a parking structure in downtown Los Angeles.
Fifteen years later, the A-Class has finally made it to the USA, for its fourth generation. I had never driven one before, so I was delighted to check out a 2019 A220 sedan with Mercedes' 4Matic all-wheel-drive system. My tester didn't have an official sticker price, but by my estimation it was roughly $46,000.
That ain't chump change, but my A220 did have pretty much every option that could be added; base-priced examples hover around $32,000, which is about $10,000 cheaper than the lowest-grade C-Class. Bear in mind that you are getting a Merc that, unlike other sedans in the automaker's long history, is based on a front-wheel-drive architecture - the same idea behind Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas.
I tried to avoid allowing my bias for rear-drive German luxury sedans to come into play with the A220. And when it was all a wrap after a week in the New York-New Jersey area, I was perfectly happy with the Benz's engineering.
But what about the rest of the ride made the A220 good enough to be a 2019 Car of the Year runner up? Read on to see what I thought.
Photos by Hollis Johnson.