2012 Mercedes A-Class undisguised on video

2012 Mercedes A-Class undisguised on Lanzarote road

The new A-Class caught on video on Lanzarote

The 2012 Mercedes A-Class will launch at Geneva next month, and we have the first undisguised video and photo of the new A-Class.

Mercedes-Benz has already confirmed that the new 2012 Mercedes A-Class will make its debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March, and that it’s the five-door A-Class that will hit the road first.

Which means Mercedes are out shooting footage for the launch of the A-Class, and a sharp-eyed cyclist has managed to grab a brief bit of footage of the new A-Class on the road to Playa Blanca on Lanzarote as Mercedes went about their work. Good job.

The view we get of the 2012 A-Class is fleeting, but enough to grab the still shot above, which clearly shows an A-Class much closer to the Concept A-Class that we’d dared hope, and a lot better looking than the A-Class image submitted to the European Patent Office.

It seems likely that this particular A-Class isn’t a bog-standard entry-level model, and is either an AMG version of the new A-Class or has the AMG body kit. But it looks good to us.

If it is the much-rumoured A-Class AMG, we expect that it could get up to 350bhp and 4WD, which will make even the 1M version of BMW’s 1-Series look sluggish.

It actually looks like Mercedes may well have some real competition for the 1-Series with this new A-Class.