£25k for an A Class?

[angus falconer]

Hi All,

Was half watching Top Gear last night and when James May was doing the test of a "real car" (ie one owned by a member of the public) me was driving an A Class diesel.

Did the owner actually pay £25,000 for an A Class? Is that possible?

You could by a V8 Merc for £15k, lavish it with service and fuel, have a blast and STILL end up £1000's better off after 3 years.

Am I missing something?

 

[Chazchuzzlewitt]

How annoying was that woman with the Audi?!
I liked James's comment to her: 'if you don't like being a passenger maybe you should stop drinking...'

I drove the new A-class recently and I wouldn't pay 10k for it nevermind 25!
I think some yuppies got ripped off...

 

[littlebrooklyn]

I think the A Class is so ugly, you couldn't give me one.

If you go onto the Mercedes website the most expensive A Class seems to be the 5dr 200CDI for £20,190....so maybe they had a lot of extras with it to make the price £25,000? They must have been mad to pay that.

 

[Morzine]

It had 'Designo' leather, enough said.

 

[angus falconer]

How annoying was that woman with the Audi?!
I liked James's comment to her: 'if you don't like being a passenger maybe you should stop drinking...'

I drove the new A-class recently and I wouldn't pay 10k for it nevermind 25!
I think some yuppies got ripped off...

I look forward to seeing the whole episode when it's repeated tomorrow. Wife plus baby = interruptions to Top Gear and F1

 

[mlc]

I was also amazed when the owner said he had paid 25k for the A class - and gold coloured if I remember correctly.

The Audi owner was wonderful, he called her car "entry level" and she went for the throat!

And best of all they admitted to breaking two M5's, so its not just MB's that fall to pieces when they drive them

I love the program, long may Clarkson and co prepare me for the drudge of work on a Monday

 

[ddentrec]

The A-Class does *not* cost £25K: it costs £14K and they paid £11K for the brand.

 

[SLinKyjoe]

The A-Class does *not* cost £25K: it costs £14K and they paid £11K for the brand.

so if you add 14 to the 11 you get 25. thus meaning he paid 25 for it and therefore one can logically deduce from that, that it cost 25. whether it is worth that or not wasn't the question really, was it.

 

[GrahamC230K]

I think everyone, including James May (spelling?), missed the point. They were obviously very well off financially, live in London and chose the A-Class on it's size alone, the proceeded to spec it high, including designo leather. Money may be no object to them, but they still want a car they park outside Tesco's Metro when they are desperate for a carton of milk and Marks and Sparks is closed!

The A-Class in my opion is the only car in that size group you could spec so high. YOu would run out of boxes to tick on a Focus C-Max or Vauxhall Zafira. They made a top choice for THEIR requirements IMO.

 

[littlebrooklyn]

I think everyone, including James May (spelling?), missed the point. They were obviously very well off financially, live in London and chose the A-Class on it's size alone, the proceeded to spec it high, including designo leather. Money may be no object to them, but they still want a car they park outside Tesco's Metro when they are desperate for a carton of milk and Marks and Sparks is closed!

The A-Class in my opion is the only car in that size group you could spec so high. YOu would run out of boxes to tick on a Focus C-Max or Vauxhall Zafira. They made a top choice for THEIR requirements IMO.

No excuse for picking such a gross colour though, they obviously have no taste :razz:

 

[Rory]

I think everyone, including James May (spelling?), missed the point. They were obviously very well off financially, live in London and chose the A-Class on it's size alone, the proceeded to spec it high, including designo leather. Money may be no object to them, but they still want a car they park outside Tesco's Metro when they are desperate for a carton of milk and Marks and Sparks is closed!

The A-Class in my opion is the only car in that size group you could spec so high. YOu would run out of boxes to tick on a Focus C-Max or Vauxhall Zafira. They made a top choice for THEIR requirements IMO.

I agree with this - suggestions that could buy a V8 so and so are not what this about. People who are loaded don't buy to a budget - they're not thinking 'what can I get for £25K', they just buy the car they want, whatever it costs. A more relevant point possibly is why buy the A Class instead of, say, a Honda Jazz? At the end of the day it's their choice.


Re the C-Max - I think you might be surprised how much you can spend. What Car is/was running one on long term test that cost over £20K, and it didn't have Sat Nav or Leather.

 

[mlc]

I think that the idea that they "ticked all the boxes" and chose to waste £25k fails on the explanation of the colour, their excuse was that it was the one the dealer had in stock, so they took what was available.

I can understand the argument that a wealthy family in the city may buy a small but quality car, but that fails on two points:

1. They dont - they buy expensive 4x4's, people carriers, sports cars, Hummers!, private Trucks! etc etc etc. Our cities are not full of green minded drivers, their full of totally inappropriate vehicles.

2. These people bought a £25K A Class, they could have had a better quality, well speced, small car for less money and not had all their friends laughing at their gold coloured invalid carriage (sorry I dont like the A class).

Mark.

 

[heckflosse]

The Mini cooper and Skoda Fabia vRS are far better cars and with £25k you could add your own boxes to tick (with the Skoda at least)

 

[mlc]

I suspect that the (only) advantage that you could offer for the A class is that its got good internal space for very little external size, something to do with hiding the engine partly under the floor. MB annouced this design as a breakthough, strangley some of us are old enough to remeber "forward control" as a concept going back to at last the 60's.

 

[Rory]

I can understand the argument that a wealthy family in the city may buy a small but quality car, but that fails on two points:

1. They dont - they buy expensive 4x4's, people carriers, sports cars, Hummers!, private Trucks! etc etc etc. Our cities are not full of green minded drivers, their full of totally inappropriate vehicles.

Of course we don't know (do we?) that they haven't got one (or more) of the above too.

 

[turnipsock]

I think the A Class is so ugly, you couldn't give me one.

To many punch lines.

My mum had an Audi A2 (same thing as an A class). She went back to Audi for another one but decided to check out the Honda dealer next door as well. Honda offered her a £1000 more for the trade in, without seeing the car.

The salesmen were a lot more efficent and friendly so now she is a Honda driver and is raving about it. I think the thing that clinched it was, we went to the dealer about three months ago and the salesman remembered us and gotus a coffee.