I feel i'd better chip in as most of the comments so far range from a little unfair ,"if it werent for the all alu build, which was unique at this price point, it would have very little else to commend it", to utter nonsense "...the boot tiny"(?).

The A2 was designed to fulfill a particular challenge, that was to come up with a car capable of taking 4 adults and their luggage from Stuttgart to Milan on one tank of fuel. The result of this was a car which was very light, especially taking into account it's very impressive (for the time) crash test results, very aerodynamic, and very spacious for 4 occupants.

As for its detractors, i will go through the issues raised.

1, ride comfort. The A2 was designed to be as aerodynamic as possible and because of this a particular size and style of wheel was used. If the size of wheel the car was designed for is used, the ride, while definately firm, is no more so than a fiesta of the same era. The problem, as is so often the case, was image, vanity, whatever you want to call it. The buying public wanted bigger and more stylish wheels, which ruined the ride. If this wasn't bad enough, a lot of them were also lowered, which made a bad situation even worse.

2, visibility. Obviously this, to a certain extent, comes down to personal opinion, but as someone who has covered a lot of miles in A2's, i found the visibility to be no better or worse than many other (steel bodied) cars. I'm not saying it didn't have blind spots, but not enough to put me off buying one.

3, boot space. Not really sure what madf is on about with the tiny boot comment, but i will respond with the facts. The A2 was a small car taking up no more road space than a fiesta. The most common supermini's of the day (fiesta, corsa, polo, etc) had boots of around 250-270 litres, but the A2's boot was 390 litres. This was not only WAY bigger than any other car of a comparable size apart from '02-'08 jazz (350 litres), but also bigger than most cars from the next size up!. The Mk4 golf for example, had a 330 litre boot.

It was designed as a 4 seater, with 2 seperate rear seats and very deep rear footwells, this was critical in making it able to comfortably accomodate 4 adults as their legs would be straight down from the knee with feet under the front seats. You could, as an optional extra, specify it with a rear bench to make it a 5 seater, but due to how narrow the car was, that wouldn't really work unless for kids. And i seem to remember that if the rear bench was specified, you lost the extra deep footwells, making it uncomfortable for adults.

Regarding the engines, i'd agree with SLO (much as i loved the 1.4tdi back in the day!). Go for the simplest option, the 1.4 petrol. It may only have 75bhp, but due to its slippery shape and lack of weight, its performance is perfectly acceptable. But definately no big wheels with wide low profile tyres, and no lowered suspension!.

I am not naive enough to suggest that the A2 was faultless, it is a flawed gem. But, in my honest opinion, it represents the last time Audi designed and put into production, a genuinely innovative, forward thinking car. And for a company who's slogan roughly translates as 'advancement through technology', from my point of view, that is truly tragic!.

The reason it never succeeded was down to price and image. It was expensive and, to most people, looked too odd. A lot of people were also put off by the fact that you couldn't open the bonnet (and by 'you', i mean Jo public, the bonnet could be quickly and easily unbolted by the mechanic when getting a service). Dipstick, oil filler and screen wash were accessible by the hinged 'grill panel'.

One last thing, if you are serious about getting an A2, get yourself on to the dedicated clubs and forums to find out 1st hand, what to look for and expect.

Edited by badbusdriver on 15/12/2017 at 19:35

The original Mercedes A class is another design which, simply from the perspective of ingenuity, was way, way ahead of anything else at the time. That a car with such tiny external dimensions could offer so much interior space and flexibility was astounding.

Unfortunately it got off to a very poor start with the infamous 'elk test' in which a (i think) Swedish motoring magazine performed a manouvre designed to simulate a violent swerve to avoid an elk which had wandered on to the road. The lttle Merc rolled over!. Mercedes then hastily redesigned the front suspension, making it stiffer, fitting it with narrower tyres and an overbearing stability system, which resulted in chronic understeer.

This was a great shame as in most other respects the A class was very safe indeed. It had an innovative dual floor constuction so that in the event of a front end collision, the engine would be forced in between the 2 floors and not pushed back into the cabin.

The A class's woes did not end with the elk though. To make matters worse the A class was produced during the period where Mercedes build quality had reached rock bottom. So although it was a brilliant design, it was unreliable and poorly assembled.

But like the Audi A2, the A class's current equivalent's, in terms of clever design and ingenuity are very poor indeed compared to their forebears. It seems that very few car companies these are interested in pushing design forward, focussing instead on making ever more powerful cars for the image obsessed.