STREET FIGHTERS

AMG AND M SPORT’S MOST ACCESSIBLE WARES FACE OFF. A35 vs M135i: NEW GAME, NEW RULES, SAME BAD BLOOD

- TRENT GIUNCO

IT’S ALMOST LUNCHTIME and only a handful of corners have been taken in anger. Storm clouds brood above as the boss man, editor Inwood, and I serve as lighting gofers. Our resident snapper, Ellen Dewar, captures it all through the camera lens. The storm is getting closer; single heavy drops start to fall. With key fobs in hand but no authorisation to use them, the skies above seem as agitated as us. Yet we’re under strict orders to get the ‘hero shot’ before Mother Nature unleashes her fury.

The downtime allows a moment to consider this duelling pair. Both the Mercedes-AMG and BMW five-doors are among the premium hot hatches of the moment yet they already carry unique baggage. Simply put, the $69,300 A35 could be perceived as somewhat of a halfway house; a car built solely to plug the narrow gap between the A250 Mercedes and the unhinged A45 S from AMG. View it this way and you could write it off simply as a cash-grab concocted by cynical marketers. It takes all of two corners to realise this isn’t the case. Throw the A35 at an apex and it’s immediately apparent that we’re dealing with an AMG-lite here, not a tarted-up A250. Phew.

The allure of the BMW is less obvious. It too can be viewed more as a marketing exercise than an engineering one, given it seems to place so little weight on tradition. Where the previous M135i (and the 140i that followed it) stayed true to BMW’s iconic formula of rear-drive with straight-six power, this new car is much more controversial. All-wheel drive and four cylinders is the new recipe, and there’s also the sobering realisation that while AMG is still to offer the feral A45 S, BMW fans have no such hardcore variant to look forward to. When it comes to the M Performance-fettled 1 Series, this is it.