The Mercedes Benz A Class is Mercedes Benz's compact family car, introduced with unusually tall packaging and later evolving into a more conventional premium hatchback and saloon range. Buyers placed the A Class toward the more expensive end of the range, where cabin quality, refinement and status mattered as much as basic transport. Older A Class examples increasingly depend on values, specialist servicing and owner commitment, because complex luxury cars are preserved on very different terms from ordinary family transport.
GROWING
Red List classification, from population, five year trajectory and survival against peak. Reviewed each census.
390,385licensed vehicles 2025 census
100.0% of the peak fleet remains licensed
14,057
declared SORN
total surviving
peak 390,385 in 2025 ·
+8,831 vehicles a year, five year trend
Population history
Licensed and SORN vehicles at each census. The filters below apply to the family population, MOT and registration figures. They do not alter the generation history above.
LicensedSORNLatest census observationSOURCE DVLA VEH0120 / VEH0220
Inside the surviving fleet
AutoCensus parses every DVLA variant description, so the fleet can be read by fuel and specification rather than as one number.
Fuel · share of licensed fleet
First registrations by year
When surviving examples first joined the British fleet.
New registrations
Vehicles first registered each year. A fleet still being sold shows here; a finished one shows only imports.
MOT reliability
DVSA test results for this family, 2005 to 2025.
Pass rate by year
Failure reason
Failures
Share of all tests
A rigid brake pipe excessively chafed, corroded or damaged
49
2.2%
The grooves of the tread pattern are not at least 1.6mm throughout a continuous band comprising the central three-quarters of the breadth of tread, and round the entire outer circumference of the tyre
46
2.1%
A rear registration plate lamp with any lamp not working
46
2.1%
A stop lamp inoperative or less than 50% of the light sources illuminating
45
2.0%
The windscreen washers do not provide enough liquid to clear the windscreen in conjunction with the wiper(s)
34
1.5%
A wiper blade insecure, missing or in such a condition that it does not clear the windscreen effectively to give the driver an adequate view of the road (through the windscreen) to the left and right sides of the vehicle, as well as to the front
34
1.5%
A coil spring broken or fractured
31
1.4%
A flexible brake hose excessively chafed, damaged or deteriorated
29
1.3%
Counted across every recorded test, 2005 to 2025. Advisories are excluded.
Where the A Class remains
Based on MOT test locations, 2025. Test location is a proxy: a vehicle is counted where it was last tested, not where it is kept.
Population history combines DVLA VEH0120 Q4 census observations through 2013 with the annual VEH0220 census from 2014 onward. Figures before 2014 cover Great Britain only. Historical VEH0120 is used only when its overlapping UK observations reconcile to the current canonical family definition. Vehicles are grouped into this family using the DVLA GenModel together with durable routing rules for known inconsistencies.
Variant figures are parsed from raw DVLA model descriptions and the original string is always retained. Configuration is only assigned where the model description explicitly identifies it; a blank configuration is not treated as a two door Wrangler. Blank transmission fields are shown as manual because DVLA records the field for automatic vehicles.
MOT figures count tests, not vehicles, and geographic figures count each vehicle at its most recent test location. The decline projection is a straight line fitted to the latest five years and is illustrative only.