SHANGHAI MOTOR SHOW: Merc's 'hot' new A-Class concept

Odd angles and hefty side sculpting and are about to leave the building at Mercedes-Benz, with the Concept A Sedan bringing the new philosophy to small cars.

While the S-Class facelift was the reality star of Mercedes-Benz’s Shanghai motor show effort, the fantasy act was stolen by the Concept A Sedan, which will be the first of eight new cars to come off Benz’s small car MFA2 architecture.

At 4.57 metres long, the Concept A Sedan will morph into a production car off the same underbody structure as the replacements for the A- and B-Class, the GLA, the CLA and the CLA Shooting Brake, plus two more models.

The extra two cars are believed to be a small coupe and a convertible, with the Concept A Sedan taking its place as, effectively, the next CLA.

As a concept car, it’s only 70mm shorter than the current production CLA, though it’s 93mm wider and 30mm lower at the roofline.

"Our Concept A Sedan shows, that the time of creases is over,” Gorden Wagener, Daimler ‘s Chief Design Office, insisted.

“With its perfect proportions and a sensual treatment of surfaces with reduced lines, it is the next milestone of Sensual Purity and has the potential to introduce a new design era."

It’s more of a three-box sedan than the CLA, too, with a more vertical treatment of its C-pillar demonstrating that it’s not trying to cross the line between coupe and sedan.

It delivers short overhangs, and its rear overhang is the key area of difference in the overall lengths of the old and the new small sedans, and its belt line is higher, too.

Its design is highlighted by the adoption of AMG’s Panamericana grille, with its aggressive vertical chromed bars, and a pair of powerdomes on the bonnet.

Its grid structures of the headlights are coated with a ultraviolet paint, which glows in different colours depending on the light around them. During the day, the Daytime Running Lights are white.

The same lighting ideas have been used at the rear of the concept car, too, while the rear has a diffuser look applied to it by simply painting the bottom half of the bumper.

The concept car also gets dark privacy films for the windows and a full-length panoramic glass roof.

Riding on 20-inch alloy wheels, the Concept A Sedan’s door mirrors are a throwback by coming out of the doors themselves, rather than the A-pillar corners of the front windows.

Much of Mercedes-Benz’s recent growth has come on the back of the compact cars, which have fattened Benz’s sales curve by more than two million cars since 2012.

"Their success shows that our customers are absolutely delighted with the current generation of Mercedes-Benz compact cars," Britta Seeger, Daimler’s board member for Mercedes-Benz sales and marketing, said.

“We are therefore extremely confident that the planned expansion will lead to a continuation of this success story.”

Mercedes’ injection of resources into the Concept A recognises that in the future the car-maker cannot afford to rely solely on SUV demand, which has reached unprecedented levels in Australia.

“What is the reason for the rise of the SUV? It is to be different to the mainstream, because it is not the utilisation of the car,” Seeger told Australian media at the New York motor show recently.

“It could be that the buyer goes back to passenger cars at some point too.”