B-Class to premiere at Sydney

The new Mercedes-Benz B-Class will make its Australian premiere at the Australian International Motor Show in Sydney next month.

A big brother to the now-established A-Class, according to Mercedes-Benz, the B "meets the wishes of today's motorists for a car with generous space, exemplary comfort, excellent practicality, an exciting design and a high level of driving pleasure."

The B is built on a modified version of the platform under the A-Class. It shares the smaller car's running gear but delivers more room. The footprint of the B corresponds to the compact car class, says Benz, yet inside delivers medium class comfort and space.

Petrol engines lead the B-Class charge. There is a choice of two four-cylinder engines, the B 200 and the B 200 TURBO with outputs of 100kW to 142kW respectively. The top-of-the-line B 200 TURBO is equipped with a new two-litre, four-cylinder engine which delivers a maximum torque of 280Nm from 1800-4850 rpm.

An impressive 0-100km/h time of 7.6sec is quoted by Mercedes.

The B 200 comes with a five-speed manual as standard and the B 200 TURBO is equipped with a six-speed manual transmission as standard. The newly developed, continuously variable AUTOTRONIC automatic transmission is optionally available for all engine variants of the B-Class.

The new B-Class will appear in Benz showrooms across Australia in November. Pricing for the B 200 and B 200 TURBO will start from $44900 and $48,900 respectively.