An innovative car concept

The new Mercedes-Benz B-Class: The Compact Sports Tourer - an innovative car concept with a high level of spacious comfort and an exciting design for dynamic driving pleasure.

Design, dynamism and dimensions - these are the outstanding features of the new B-Class, the Mercedes-Benz Compact Sports Tourer. With this novel Sports Tourer concept, Mercedes-Benz is once again asserting its role as the trendsetter among car brands and preparing the way for a young market segment with a promising future.

The B-Class 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. This new Mercedes development takes the advantages of different vehicle concepts and combines them into an interesting and distinctive profile of its own: as a Compact Sports Tourer, the B-Class is a touring, family and recreational vehicle with incomparable added experience value in terms of design and dynamism.

One of the major advantages of the Compact Sports Tourer is the sandwich concept developed by Mercedes-Benz. Thanks to the space-saving arrangement of the engine and transmission partly in front of and partly beneath the passenger cell, the new B-Class offers the interior spaciousness of larger saloons and estate cars despite its compact external dimensions.

This unique concept, not only achieves wonders where economy of space is concerned, but is the centrepiece of the safety concept in the new B-Class. Intelligently arranging the engine and transmission in an inclined position makes a greater effective front end length available for crash deformation.

During a severe frontal impact the drive unit is not moved backwards towards the interior, but slides downwards along the likewise inclined pedal floor panel.

Moreover, the sandwich concept has significant advantages in the event of a lateral collision because the occupants are seated some 20 cm higher - and therefore above the impact zone. This means that despite its compact exterior dimensions, the B-Class provides the level of occupant safety typically found in a Mercedes.