You’re right, we’ve been here many times before – another AMG Brave Pill. But in the manner of Ricky Gervais hosting his final Golden Globes, I don’t care any more. Wait, I’m joking – I never did. Because nobody will ever have to grumble complaints about Pill’s Germanic died into their Saturday cornflakes again. Cue the muffled drums, because next week’s Brave Pill is going to be the last one ever. Plans are in place to go out on a high, but given the sheer number of AMGs to have featured over the years, from the CLK 55 that kicked the whole thing off, it feels appropriate to head back to the favourite watering hole a final time.

This is a very different AMG to the ones that have gone here before. Both the A45 and the closely related CLA 45 have started to get enticingly cheap recently, with our chosen offering being the rarer CLA 45 AMG Shooting Brake estate, this one selected for having covered a definitely run-in 129,000 miles. Beneath the cutesy looks lies a serious performance machine thanks to 375hp and all-wheel driven traction. With a 4.3-second 0-62mph time you would struggle to go much faster for the £16,290 being asked here.

The idea for an AMG hot hatch and its saloon sister took some getting used to. Before the 45s arrived AMG’s road cars had almost all been developed around a simple, tested formula – a big engine up front turning rear wheels. Not all of these engines had been V8s, the W202-generation C 36 having used a six-pot and the various 65-spec S-, CL- and SL-Classes getting V12s. But the prospect of an AMG with a turbocharged four sitting transversely across its engine bay was a radical one, even if AWD would spare it from the heresy of being front-driven.

At a preview event at Affalterbach before the launch, a group of journalists got to experience the performance of an A45 prototype on local roads – where it was blisteringly quick – with AMG’s then-development boss Tobias Moers talking us around the engineering that had gone into it. This included both a new seven-speed twin-clutch transmission and what he promised was Nurburgring-proven all-wheel drive, one that wouldn’t overheat and stop working as wimpier Haldex-type systems were prone to under hard use.

Moers was proudest of the new 2.0-litre engine that AMG had created for this baby rocketship, this making 355hp. The M113 featured innovations including a twin-scroll turbocharger, direct injection and a cylinder head specially treated to improve its ability to conduct the huge heat generated by a specific output per litre almost identical to the Bugatti Chiron. It was, Moers proudly told us, the most powerful 2.0-litre four-cylinder road car engine the world had ever seen. At which point one brave soul at the back of the room raised their hand to ask if that included the 405hp Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X FQ-400, earning a look from Moers that could have bored through concrete.

Driving the A45 hatch and its booted CLA 45 sister revealed that both were indeed brutally quick on both road and track. But taking to the then newly opened circuit at Bilster Berg also proved that this new AMG had very different dynamic priorities to any of its predecessors. Traction was huge, but the enthusiasm to do anything other than grip and go was limited, and although there it featured a clever system that was able to torque bias through the brakes going into turns it was easy to engender understeer in over-committed corners.

Although the A45 and the CLA 45 were mechanically identical, the different rear bodywork pointed them at different buyers. The A was definitely a hot hatch, one that quickly proved buyers were willing to pay a substantial premium over a Golf R or BMW M135i to get something so potent. But the CLA looked like a shrunken version of the much more handsome CLS, its strangely shaped taillights making it look as if it was melting. The saloon cost £42,000 before options in 2013, making it four grand more than its hatchback sister. To no great surprise, the A45 outsold the CLA 45 by more than three to one in the UK.

But AMG wasn’t done yet. The same mechanical bits were put under the slightly taller GLA midi-SUV in 2014 to create the GLA 45. And then, in what seems to be the result of a marketing executive’s attempt to win a bet about how many niches could be slotted into each other, with the CLA 45 Shooting Brake. The baby estate looked more filled-out than the four-door, but practicality was still limited – the 495-litre boot was only 25 litres bigger than the bijou saloon.

Our Pill is one of the few CLA 45 Shooting Brakes to have reached the UK between the start of sales in and the CLA’s mid-life refresh in 2015. That means it has the earlier mechanical spec, presumably including the 355hp engine rather than the facelifted 375hp suggested by the description. Beyond that, it’s hard to fault on the available evidence, with little sign of a six-figure mileage to be found in the pictures where it looks smart outside and in. It also has desirable options including the panoramic glass sunroof and, seemingly, also the switchable performance exhaust which was a pricey extra. The vendor also says our Pill’s entire mileage has been put on by a single owner, which is a definite plus given how well it seems to have been looked after.

That’s borne out by the MOT history which is devoid of scares, but which shows the car managed an impressive 79,000 miles by the time of its first test in 2018. The two most recent passes have been all green, with the few advisories before that down to tyre wear, a chipped windscreen and that old friend “oil leak, but not excessive,” which disappeared between 2019 and 2021. There has also been a single fail for a damaged tyre. 

But our last AMG also looks to be the least risky, if also the least able to create huge smoking burnouts. See you next week for the big finale!