BMW 428i vs Mercedes-Benz CLA250

What's the difference?

Tim Robson road tests and reviews the BMW 4 Series with specs, fuel consumption and verdict at its Australian launch.

Following on from the mid-life tweaks to BMW's mainstay 3 Series in December 2015, the spin-off 4 Series line has now been updated along the same powertrain and equipment lines.

Based on the same mechanicals as the 3 Series, the three-year-old 4 Series was ostensibly formed to give BMW's nomenclature some sense of logic by designating its two-door machines as 'evens' (2 Series, 4 Series and 6 Series) and its four-door cars as 'odds'.

Three variants currently make up the 4 Series range, including a two-door Coupe, a two-door Convertible and – oddly, given the naming regime – a four-door Gran Coupe that also sports a hatch-like tailgate.

If you're after a hot hatch with a boot, you can't have one because it wouldn't be a hatch anymore.

What you can have is this little beast - the new, second-generation Mercedes-AMG CLA 45 S, a small coupe-style sedan sharing its high-performance DNA with the hot as bubbling lava A 45 S hatch.

Packing 300kW – that's just over 420hp – and 500Nm its 2.0-litre engine is claimed to be the most powerful series production turbo four ever made.

And Australian deliveries are scheduled for early 2020, with a likely price tag in the mid-$90k bracket.

Mercedes-AMG invited us to the car's global launch in Madrid, Spain, where we got behind the wheel on road and track.