- The 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLA 250 is all-new for its second generation, and represents the entry-level Mercedes-Benz SUV.
- Despite its increase in size, the new GLA is fun, especially as a front-wheel drive car. Just don’t expect to fit a whole lot in the trunk.
- Prices start at $36,230, but my loaner came out to $57,150 after options.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
There are big, hulking, behemoth SUVs – ones that tower over children and loom over adults, competing with buses for space on the roads – and then there are the smaller, bite-sized ones.
Contrary to what the current car market says, which is that bigger is always better, buying small is allowed. It can be a good thing, even.
A “compact” SUV is oxymoronic, but they exist, offering heightened ingress and egress and slightly more head and shoulder room than the hatchbacks and sedans they might compete with.
The brand-new 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLA 250 is the latest example. It's bigger than the model it replaces, but that just means more room for you to stretch out a bit while taking up less room on the road.
The 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLA 250: The little one
The Mercedes SUV spread is impressive. Sitting at the top of its big-car hierarchy are the boxy G-Wagen and the massive GLS. All the way down - past the GLE, GLC, and GLB, because we go in alphabetical order here - is the diminutive GLA.
There's an SUV for every size requirement: big, medium, small, and even ones for people who willfully ignore how to use the word "coupe" correctly.
New for its second generation, the GLA represents the entry point for Mercedes SUVs. The squarer GLB is more utilitarian-focused; the GLA is sleeker and more athletic-looking. In a production Q&A, a Mercedes spokesperson said the car is intended for either an empty-nester or early starter.
Basically, that translates to buyers who don't have a lot of stuff or people to carry regularly, because this trunk is snug.
Details and safety ratings: Very compact, even by 'compact' standards
The GLA rides on a platform that's shared across all of Mercedes' compact cars, underpinning the GLB and CLA as well. The new GLA is 3.9 inches higher than the outgoing model, but 0.6 inches shorter from nose to tail. Despite this, Mercedes claims it offers "considerably more legroom" in the back.
Still, the GLA is small. It's only 1.6 inches longer, 1.7 inches wider, and 6.3 inches taller than the 2021 Toyota Corolla hatchback. That places it solidly within the compact category.
Once upon a time, a Mercedes model's alphanumeric name dictated the displacement of its engine (an E320 had a 3.2-liter engine) but that practice is no more. The GLA 250 has a 2.0-liter, turbocharged inline-four engine that produces a claimed 221 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque.
Mercedes estimates it to hit 60 mph from a standstill in between 6.6 and 6.8 seconds, as well as achieve an electronically limited top speed of 130 mph. Power is sent to the front wheels via an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.
For an extra $2,000, however, you can equip your GLA with Mercedes' 4MATIC all-wheel drive. Curb weight comes to 3,384 pounds for the front-wheel drive version, 3,494 pounds for GLAs equipped with 4MATIC.
At the time of this writing, the 2021 GLA 250 has not yet been rated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for crash safety.
What stands out: Torque steer, it builds character
The first thing you'll notice is that the new GLA is quite a nice place to sit. The seats are contoured, yes, but they are roomy. There's plenty of headroom. The cabin isn't claustrophobic. The back seats do indeed offer plenty of legroom. And the big infotainment system - formally called Mercedes-Benz User Experience, or "MBUX" - offers a great display: good viewing angles, a clear and concise picture. I wouldn't mind that kind of resolution on my phone.
The GLA's little engine has plenty of hustle, too. With the windows down, it's a whooshing, whistling thing as the turbocharger spools up. In the standard Comfort driving mode, the car accelerates agreeably, but putting it in Sport mode is the play here.
Unlike other cars, where Sport mode is perhaps more a sugar pill than a mode that actually does anything, Sport mode in the GLA noticeably changes the car's personality. The steering tightens up and the transmission takes on a tendency to hang out in a gear lower than it normally would.
With this engine, 3,500 rpm is your sweet spot. Keeping the revs there - or at least close to there - guarantees the most immediate response, the most urgency, the most fun. The power is most accessible in this mode. It made a jaunt across Brooklyn's Belt Parkway quite enjoyable, despite the moderate traffic.
You'll feel a bit of torque steer - a normal phenomenon that predominantly affects front-wheel-drive cars, where accelerating powerfully at low speeds can cause the steering wheel to pull in another direction - but it's totally controllable.
Actually, it gives the GLA a bit more character. It gives it a bit of a hot-hatch quality - which, to car enthusiasts, is a good thing.
Curiously, the GLA 250 didn't feel as light and tossable as the Toyota Venza I had a few weeks ago, despite weighing a few hundred pounds less, but I still had fun in it. Its short overhangs made it extremely easy to place and maneuver - and especially easy to park. It was a nice city car.
What falls short: Itty, bitty, little trunk
Mercedes-Benz is a luxury brand, but it's still an athletic sort of luxury that's unlike the Lincolns of the road. As such, I found the GLA's suspension to ride a bit on the hard side, which makes me think the eventual performance-focused AMG version will ride even harder. If you live in a place where the road quality is generally alright, you probably won't be bothered by this.
The Mercedes product spokespeople weren't kidding when they said who they envisioned this car was for. I cannot imagine a family with two small children - plus all the gear those two small children require - would have much use for the GLA. Although the passenger cabin is roomy, the trunk is laughably small.
With the second row upright, there's 15.4 cubic feet of cargo room in the trunk. Comparatively, the smaller Toyota Corolla hatchback we discussed above has 17.8 cubic feet behind its second row.
No, the GLA is for a two-person household and their luggage and cargo, or a four-person household where those four people don't bring a whole lot to wherever they're going.
And after having great success with the voice command in the Polestar 2, I wanted to test out the GLA's system, too.
"Hey, Mercedes. How do you make a banana split?"
"Navigating you to Banana Split Inc. on 820 Church Road, Aurora, Illinois," the car said after a moment.
Noooo. "Cancel! Hey, MERCEDES! CANCEL!"
I tried again. "Hey, Mercedes. Tell me a joke."
"Sorry," the car responded dryly. "My engineers were German."
How the GLA 250 compares to its competitors: The sales numbers don't lie
Mercedes sold 22,137 GLAs last year out of 316,094 total passenger cars sold. On the other hand, the bigger GLC sold 73,650 examples - which tells me that most people still want more room when they get an SUV. Buyers don't want small things right now, they want big ones.
The 2021 GLA starts at $36,230. Here's how it stacks up against the competition in terms of starting price and examples sold in 2019:
- BMW X1: $35,400, 17,815 sold in 2019
- Volvo XC40: $33,700, 17,654 sold in 2019
- Lexus UX: $32,300, 16,725 sold in 2019
- Audi Q3: $34,700, 14,822 sold in 2019
The newest GLA is a bit more expensive than the competition. But the numbers don't lie: It handily outsold its competitors by a pretty significant amount, and in a segment that's not the easiest sell.
The 2021 GLA is available now in dealerships.
Our impressions: The new one is bigger, but that means more interior room
The first-generation GLA was a funky little thing - basically, a lifted hatchback that shared a platform with the Infiniti QX30, which was killed off last year. It reminded me of that weirdo two-door liftback C-Class Sport Coupe from the 2000s - one of the more European-looking Mercedes cars we ever got here in the States.
I feel like I used to see those tooling around everywhere. Then, all of a sudden, they disappeared. What happened to them?
I have no way of proving this, but I think everyone traded them in for GLAs. The idea behind them is the same: something smaller than an SUV but with slightly more utility than a sedan. The first-gen GLA satisfied that need.
The new GLA sacrifices those fun proportions for something that's roomier inside, sure - but that something has now also achieved the approximate shape of a Yeezy sneaker and the face of a pug.
It's not the most distinctive or prettiest car, so the GLA is best enjoyed from the inside. Inside, the leathers are nice, there are 64 ambient lighting colors to pick from, and there's plenty of room to be comfortable. Just not a whole lot for your stuff.
After options, my loaner came out to $57,150 - which is far too much money for a front-wheel-drive compact SUV. The most expensive options were the matte paint ($2,500) and the AMG Line aesthetic additions ($2,240). Those don't at all affect the way the GLA drives.
Mercedes said it's found that many of its customers enjoy optioning out their cars, so maybe a $60,000 compact SUV is in your wheelhouse. But if it were me? I'd be happy in the most basic GLA.
I've long suspected the most fun is found in the base model. These typically weigh the least and aren't bogged down with all-wheel drive or unnecessarily extra power.
The front-wheel-drive GLA proves that. It's a spry little thing, offering more personality, charm, and fun than many of Mercedes' other, bigger cars.
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