What’s new: Mercedes-Benz has a habit of carving out its own little niches, and this is the second generation of the only premium mini-MPV, the B-class. We’ve driven it in 121g/km B200 CDI?Sport manual form.
Excellent: The residual values are superb.?There aren’t many other MPV-style cars on sale that can command an RV of over 40% after three years and 60,000 miles. There’s also the official economy figure of 64.2mpg.
Good: The interior impresses for both its material quality and design, providing some substance to back up the premium price tag.
Average: The styling, although improved over the unloved previous B-class, is still not pretty, while the manual shift proves that Merc is more adept at producing automatics. CO2 of 121/gkm is good, but a couple of grammes lower would have dropped BIK by a band.
Poor: Although the residual value helps claw back the cost per mile to a decent 53.5p, there’s still no escaping the fact that, for its size, the B-class is expensive to purchase.
Verdict: The only premium mini-MPV is better in every way – but it’s expensive, although RVs help mitigate that.
