[Auto] It's been 25 years since Mercedes launched its first front-wheel drive car

[Mindsphere.]

 

https://www.4tuning.ro/alte-stiri-auto/au-trecut-25-de-ani-de-cand-mercedes-a-lansat-pe-piata-prima-sa-masina-cu-tractiune-fata-48529.html

 

Available - initially, exclusively in the form of a hatchback with a five-door body, it is sold today even in a sedan version, the platform used by the current A-Class but even hosting an SUV with three rows of seats (, plus seven seats).

The Germans from Mercedes celebrated - at the beginning of this month, two and a half decades since the debut of their first car equipped with a front-wheel drive system, with the edition from March 6 to 16, 1997 of the legendary Geneva International Motor Show hosting, among others, and the world premiere of the old A-Class W168.

The first compact that could boast of ESP as standard - the decision to install that technology was made (only) after a copy managed to overturn the famous test of momentum, it was initially sold only in a five-door hatchback version, but things would change later; even radical.
1,159,321 orders apparently registered - between 1997 and 2005, the first Mercedes to boast a front-wheel drive system, the old A-Class W168 being replaced in 2004 by the generation known to German officials as code W169; the new car would be marketed in a hatchback version with only three doors.

The next generation - the third in number, of the Stuttgart compact was launched on the market in 2012 and returned to the original formula, with customers having exclusively a five-door body; offered until 2018, the old W176 marked (and) the debut of an A45 AMG flavor, with a two-liter turbo engine and 381 horsepower.

21 years after the world premiere of the original - in 2018, the Germans from Mercedes presented the current A-Class, a car with a front-wheel drive system and code name W177 proposing both a five-door hatchback version and a sedan variant, plus two performance flavors: A45 and for the first time A35.

The platform used by the famous Stuttgart compact now houses a four-door coupe named CLA - and also sold as a Shooting Brake, as well as the B-Class minivan known to the general public since 2005 or two SUVs: one with two rows of seats, GLA, another with seven seats: GLB.