SPY PICS: Mercedes reimagines A-Class

Mercedes-Benz’s A-Class is its troubled child, but it might not be that way for too much longer.

Benz turned the stodgy A-Class into a more conventional hatchback in 2012, but that has and hasn’t worked. It’s given Benz the chance to add the GLA crossover and the CLA sedan off its back, but the hatchback still loses comparison tests in its home market to not just the Audi A3 but the Volkswagen Golf as well.

Now, sources insist Benz is working hard to fix the core problems with the A-Class, and that it will address the “zinginess” from the chassis architecture, the packaging and luggage capacity and the dull driving experience when it replaces the car in 2018.

It hasn’t completely thrown out the current car’s much-criticized MFA architecture, but it’s changed a lot of it. Originally conceived as a small-car architecture for a range of junior Chryslers, back in the DaimlerChrysler days, the MFA will morph into the MFA2.

Sources in Stuttgart insist the next A-Class will be longer, with a longer wheelbase and more interior space, plus greater luggage capacity, and there will be no going back to the boxy original shape.

The five-door will move away from the current 2.1-litre turbo-diesel range and instead use the newgeneration 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel, though Benz insiders insist a modular 1.5-litre three-cylinder engine isn’t out of the question, especially in concert with hybrid electric power.

There will be manual gearbox available in some markets, though the lion’s share of the shifting will be done by a Benz-developed nine-speed automatic transmission.

The most likely hybrid scenario, though, is to mate lithium-ion batteries and a transmission-mounted disc-shaped electric motor with one of the A-Class’s smaller petrol engines, probably the 1.6-litre four it shares with Renault. It would be a plug-in system, with around 30km of pure-electric running.

Given its life cycle will straddle the new EU7 laws dictating a 95g/km CO2 limit, it’s almost certain that the A-Class will finally make a strong push as a full battery-electric car, too.

Its heavily criticised interior will be given a significant overhaul, too, moving more into line with the push, led by the C-Class, to plusher materials and more focus on a premium feel for the frequently used switchgear.

There is even the possibility that the A-Class (and the CLA and GLA twins) could get an optional full-digital display screen, as the E-Class does and as Audi does with its A3.