Luxury, performance, comfort — Mercedes-Benz had built its reputation on these qualities and more over decades. Then it decided to build the A-Class.

Apparently design chief Bruno Sacco told his team to tear up the rule book and think small, a word that had not existed in the Merc vocabulary until that point in the mid-1990s.

So the team followed orders and produced a scrunched-up car that looked like a C-Class that had escaped from the scrapyard crusher.

Instead of running it around the Nurburgring to test it, the team reckoned most people didn’t want to drive hatchbacks fast and that it would be fine after a quick pootle to Lidl for some bratwurst and a crate of Beck’s. Job done.

Er, not quite. Enter Swedish motoring journalist Robert Collin, who decided the A-Class needed taking out of its comfort zone.

He set up what is now the infamous “elk test” – named after the element of the Swedish driving test which requires drivers to swerve around one or more creatures with nasty looking antlers.

This involved putting out a few sets of cones on either side of the road and swerving the car in between them.

Clearly Mr Collin didn’t consider it too much to ask until he found himself upside down with his legs around his ears.

The A-Class had overturned spectacularly and panic ensued as the car was already on sale.

Buyers began to wonder why they had forked out for a car that was as safe as an arsonist in a fireworks factory.

The Merc team, after initially denying the problem, realised they had better do something quick or they would be left with a bigger turkey than the DeLorean, as well as some potentially costly compensation claims.

All 2,600 cars on the road were recalled and, after a brainstorm with some geeks, every A-class was then fitted with pioneering electronic stability control and modified suspension.

Unfortunately that made it so safe and predictable it became one of the most boring cars on the road.

Still, if you want a car that categorically won’t fall over while careering around the roadworks on the M40, or indeed a bunch of mooses, then the A-class is the one for you.