Mercedes-Benz A-Class

Baby Benz plays best in the city

When you look at what BMW (the 1-Series) and Audi (the A2, internationally at least) are doing or are planning to do with their model line-ups, it's possible that Mercedes-Benz was really ahead of the game back in 1998 when it unveiled its baby car, the A-Class.

While the rest play catch-up, Benz has now introduced us to the second-generation A-Class, although there was a facelift of the first version back in 2000 to coincide with a pricing shuffle brought on by the introduction of GST.

The big question for most buyers has to do with whether the baby Benz was a proper Mercedes in the first place. And these days, for anybody thinking about a second-hand A-Class, the main issue revolves around whether the tiddler has the virtue of reliability that helped make its bigger siblings such sought-after used cars.

The styling you can make up your own mind about, but it's fair to say that the A-Class sacrificed plenty of cool for practicality.

Unlike the BMW 1-Series, which has retained some traditional BMW styling themes, the A-Class owes more to the bulky M-Class SUV than it does to any other Benz product.

The tall, upright looks, however, do serve an important purpose because they allow for an upright seating position that makes more of the interior space than you might imagine for such a short vehicle.

The main complaint would be rear headroom for anybody taller than about 175 cm and a slight shortage of rear legroom, although it's tolerable over shorter distances.

The first version of the A-Class we saw was the A160, referring to its 1.6-litre, four-cylinder engine.

The engine produced 75 kW of power and pretty solid pulling power, so even though it's no race car, it more than keeps up with traffic and can cruise the freeways comfortably.

A conventional five-speed manual was the starting point, but many owners saw the sense in the five-speed clutchless manual that works either like a normal automatic or as a manual, where you shift the gears but the on-board computer works the clutch for you. It takes a bit of getting used to, and its main benefit is around town, where it relieves you of the responsibility of worrying about what gear you're in.

Two trim levels were offered; the base-model Classic and the upspec Avantgarde.

The Classic bought you a good range of safety gear such as dual front airbags, side airbags, ABS brakes, electronic stability control and seatbelt pretensioners.

Interestingly, you didn't get remote locking (although it has central locking) or alloy wheels and neither version had power windows in the rear.

The facelift brought with it a couple of new models, including a bigger, 1.9-litre engine option and an entry-level 1.4-litre model - which is probably the car Mercedes-Benz would like to have launched with as it pushed the sticker price down to under $31,000.

Despite that pricing, you didn't actually lose any of the safety or convenience gear, nor even the option of the clutchless manual gearbox.

The smaller engine made the driver work a bit harder, but the A140 would still keep pace with anything city traffic could throw at it and, provided you were prepared to work the transmission, it could travel interstate with no problems. The smaller engine was only really ever an issue when travelling with a full load of passengers or up big, long hills.

Even then, the A-Class' forte was its round-town performance.

With a tight turning circle and the ability to be parked in almost impossibly small spaces, it really shone in the urban jungle.

Add the excellent visibility due to the high seating position that allowed you to plan ahead in traffic, and the A-Class was really in its element in the cut and thrust. So it was a real Mercedes-Benz, then? According to people who have owned the A-Class, it was most certainly the real deal.

Need to know

• Anti-roll bars on some early models gave problems. Later models have a factory fix that can be retro-fitted to earlier cars.
• Thunks from rear suspension suggest worn suspension bushes.
• Make sure all the electrical gear works, particularly the power windows.
• Most were sold to private buyers, so avoid cars with lots of kilometres unless they are super cheap.

What to pay

Source: Glass's Guide