The new Mercedes A Class concept car is a great looking car and it will no doubt in the future be one of our highly successful Mercedes contract hire models. Naturally Mercedes want to promote the forthcoming model, however in its description of the A Class Mercedes said, "The wind and the waves, as well as aviation engineering, were the sources of inspiration for its designers"

Oh really, come on. Why did Mercedes allow their advertising and spin people to publish this? Is there not someone at Mercedes who now feels more than a little uncomfortable, having permitted that statement to be published?

It’s a little like Vauxhall coming up with their “Lifetime Warranty”; the advertising people who recommended this must have thought this was a great idea. We however know from our Vauxhall car leasing clients, that it has more than anything annoyed motorists and the lifetime warranty issue caused one of our fleet Vauxhall leasing clients to switch to Ford contract hire . Unless you are going to spend a lot of the time on the bus, a warranty that has a maximum mileage of 100,000, is not going to last you a lifetime.

The Mercedes A Class is probably going to be a brilliant car, in spite of the spin; apart from its advanced appearance it has a radar-based collision warning system with adaptive Brake Assist. The car will be a winner but Mercedes   continued with their overkill; they went onto say, when talking about the A Class’ dashboard, “It’s the shape of an aircraft wing and a translucent, stretchable textile lining" allowing "the bionic, cellular structure of the component to remain visible."

 Oh that’s OK then, we all understand that. Being able to tell a prospective Mercedes leasing client that, the bionic, cellular structure of the component will remain visible, will certainly clinch the sale.

We can conclude that the A Class, with or without the Mercedes' hyperbole, is destined to be extremely successful; when the first pictures were published, we started to get enquiries from existing Mercedes contract hire clients asking when they would be able to lease a new A Class. The car went on show four days ago at The Shanghai Motor Show, as to whether the car will eventually turn out the same as the concept car remains to be seen.