Reshuffle for B-Class Benz

Mercedes-Benz is dropping the A-Class from the local range in answer to customer response and has re-worked the B-Class range to take up the slack.

The least expensive Benz is now the B 180, priced at $36,990. For that money -- $1000 less than the A 180 five-door -- the basic 'B' offers 17-inch alloy wheels, front and rear armrests, a six-stack CD audio system and mock-chrome exterior highlights. Those are all features that would have cost extra in the A-Class.

Fitted with an 85kW, 155Nm four-cylinder petrol engine, the new variant achieves 6.3L/100km fuel consumption in combined-cycle testing and drives through a five-speed manual transmission. Specifications for other variants in the range have been adjusted also, to fall into line with the revised pricing of the new base model and its market position.

"With the introduction of that car, we've had to make changes to the B 200 and B 180 CDI, which were previously the entry-level models," said Zack Loo, Product Manager for the importer. "They've picked up a fair bit of new equipment. They've now got 'Metro Package', which was the CVT and the Active Parking Assist, which also includes the parking sensors. They've also got leather upholstery with seat heating, a 17-inch AMG rim and the Sports Package."

"You'd be looking somewhere around the vicinity of $6000 to $8000 [worth of extra equipment in the B 200 and B 180 CDI]."

Senior Manager Corporate Communications for the importer, David McCarthy, advised that the company expects to double sales volumes of the B-Class by dropping the starting price of the range below that of the base-model A-Class -- to somewhere around 1400 units per year. The B-Class will offer buyers more rear-seat legroom and can position Benz against BMW's X1 and Audi's Q3 models ahead of their local introduction.

Occasionally iconic, occasionally controversial, the A-Class wasn't providing Benz buyers the same packaging that young urban families with growing kids needed in the longer term. The trick for Benz has been to push the B-Class into the gap in lieu of the A-Class.

"Buyers are overwhelmingly choosing B-Class," McCarthy explained. "We see this as an opportunity to reposition B-Class; to spend not just the marketing dollar and everything, but the effort, on a product that the customers have told us they want.

"We're repositioning B-Class at a price point pretty much where A-Class was."

When it was put to McCarthy that pitting the B-Class against 'crossover' competitors from BMW and Audi seemed like a long shot, he replied that these vehicles will appeal more for their usefully large packaging in a compact external footprint rather than innate 'offroad' ability. In that respect, he said, the B-Class is perfectly capable of meeting the rivals on an even footing.

"Particularly, in that segment, one of the things that is really important to buyers, is interior versatility -- and that's where B-Class [gains]... the interior is huge. What you can do anything with it and how you can configure it is pretty unusual."

VFACTS figures for last year show that the B-Class didn't outsell the A-Class by large numbers in 2009, but a large part of that boils down to supply, says McCarthy. In 2007, before the Global Financial Crisis, the difference in numbers was 1783 of the B-Class to 1088 of the A-Class. There's an opportunity to increase sales volumes -- and improve profit at the same time. 

"The higher production volumes of the B-Class effectively allow more profit," said McCarthy. "The A-Class is a significantly smaller car than the B-Class, but it's still a full five-star [NCAP-rated] car -- and that's expensive. B-Class and A-Class are expensive to make, because of the way they're constructed. An A-Class might be, say, seven per cent smaller, but it's not seven per cent cheaper to make."

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