I Bought a Ridiculous Mercedes A-Class From Europe

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This is my 1998 Mercedes A140, imported from Europe. Today I'm reviewing this ridiculous yet special A-class, and I'll show you all the many quirks and features. I'm also going to get behind the wheel of the A-class and show you what it's like to drive.

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DOUGSCORE CHART:

CHAPTERS:
00:00 CARS & BIDS!!!
00:16 THIS...
00:51 Overview
01:51 Pathetic Powertrain Options
02:38 "Sandwich" Engine Design
03:26 Controversial Design
04:04 Roll Over Prone
05:18 I Like the Styling
06:14 Interior Quirks & Features
06:40 Very 90s Patterned Cloth Seats
07:05 Fun Wavy Lines
07:37 When High-End & Trash Materials Collide
10:01 Crank Rear Windows
10:25 Bus-Grade Steering Wheel
11:03 Incohesive Design
11:40 It has Air Conditioning!
12:08 Rear Seats: Small & Basic
12:50 2 Cupholders, 5 Seats
13:20 Bizarre Triangular View
13:46 Shockingly Large Cargo Area
14:20 How it Performed on the Market
15:20 The Beginning of a Successful Segment
15:55 WHY Did I Buy This Thing??
17:50 HOW Did I Buy This Thing??
19:22 $2,200
20:49 Driving Experience
24:49 Final Thoughts
25:22 DougScore

#dougdemuro #cars #mercedes

[Nolfavrell]

German here, The A-class was sort of a granny-car. It was really popular with older folk that came from nicer Mercedes' and needed a practical car to do shopping and get all your grandkids in the back. Parking in tight spaces with this is a blast with its great visibility.

[AbcdeFU]

You can never escape ur thirst for quirky euro cars, doug

[m-a-l-]

I owned a total of 3 of these and I have to add some information to the Video.

1st of all: THE ELK TEST: As Doug mentioned after this test Mercedes fitted ESP (electronic stability program) to EVERY unit of these cars (even to those which were allready sold) and from this moment on they were within the top 5 of the safest subcompact cars of the time. Mercedes even made advertisements with the Elk-Test then and when I picked up my 1st new A-Class in November 2001 I bought a little stuffed animal Elk in the Mercedes-Benz Store (this guy is still sitting in my living room).

2nd: THE PRACTICALLITY: Doug missed to show you one of the most important features of this car: It's tremendous practicallity. The rear seats can be folded which increases the trunk space like in a normal car (but with a huge step from the trunk floor to the folded seat backs). BUT they can also be removed completely, which gives you a HUGE level floor and a trunk space almost like in a serious van. And if that wouldn't be enough you also could opt for an also removable and foldable front passenger seat (the seat right of the driver), which increases the level floor and the space even more. I NEVER owned a vehicle more practical than the 1st gen A-Class, even if I also owned several station wagons.

3rd: THE OPTIONS: Dougs exemplar is really basic almost without any options beside the A/C (btw from 2000 almost every sold A-Class was sold with an A/C - that no one opted for the A/C is only true for the very first model years. But there are a ton of (pricy) options you could get to increase luxury and experience. You could opt for the Elegance-line which is a more luxurious line and even a leather interior was available when you opted for this line. You could also opt for the Avantgarde-line which was a more sporty line and in this case a part-leather interior was standard. Also seat pockets on the back of the front seats were available as options as well as lots of other stuff which increased the usability and the practicallity of this car. From the drivers perspective you could also order things like automated speed control, a (very smooth an quick shifting) 5-gear automatic transmission, better engines (100hp, 123hp and from 2002 to 2004 also a 138hp "AMGish" engine as well as Diesel engines with 74hp and 94hp).

It may be not the most beautiful car of the time (but also not the most ugly one...) but in my opinion the W168 never was a bad car, especially not for its time and especially not when you chose the options you wanted.

[valueseven]

An important point to add: Like you said, they added stability control (ESP) to every A-Class during the recall. But during that time in 1997, stability control had only been available in the S-Class. Similar for other manufacturers, it was only offered in the top of the line models.
By adding it to their base model as a standard option, Mercedes had to start offering it to their other models (ML, C—Class etc.). And other manufacturers had to quickly adapt and offer the same to their customers.
So, while everyone has been laughing at the failed elk test, one could argue that it saved a lot of lives afterwards by pushing stability control at a much faster pace across the entire car market than it would have otherwise!

[wuspoppin]

I like how he says "to import it you gotta be weird and rich, i got those covered" while maniacally laughing behind the steering wheel of the short mercedes

[nbn]

You need to take this to a Mercedes dealership and ask them for a routine service and see how their mechanics react.

[MiloFPS]

As a Brit this makes me laugh because these cars were everywhere and still are very common and so many are in the scrapyard right now. That’s why we like Doug, he gets all excited by the most mundane crap 😂

[jochenstacker]

What I love about Doug is that he can get really enthused about a small, under-powered car like this, because it's fun and quirky.
A true car enthusiast. I respect him for that.

[SnifflingLime-MW]

Could this be a return of Doug purchasing quirky cars and making silly videos with them like the early days of his channel???

[-JC_Denton-]

Steve Mattin actually got a “Design of the Year” industry award with this car, which got him into the “big league” of designers. He has a lot of stories about it and his later work at Volvo and LADA (where we’ve got acquainted). So Doug, if you ever doing an interview format - I can connect you two.

[FelipeAlves-ikrb]

This car is amazing, I had the pleasure to own 2 A Classes here in Brazil, both were 2004, A160 Classic and A190 Avantgarde. The Avantgarde was beyond amazing with all the car’s features and the 1.9 engine is tremendously powerful for this tiny car, it easily reaches 200km. Have a nice time with your Baby Benz and I hope more people get to buy it in the USA!

[ThatWaffleNightcore]

The thing with automatic windows in front and manual in the back is actually very common on european cars to this day

[said]

I think it would be hilarious to see how mechanics at a mercedes dealer would react to seeing this car roll in

[langeu]

Most people don't know that the A-Class was engineered at first to be an EV. Hence the sandwich floor where the battery was supposed to go. When the EV plans were canned (because the time was not right yet), the double floor was communicated as a safety feature for side impact protection. The angled position of the transverse engine was also an afterthought. The more compact E-motor would have fit into the small space easily.

[mphoto]

I had one when I had a serious accident. To this day I know that thanks to its design, it saved my life. It was written off by the insurance company and I only broke a finger. The engine did indeed dive under me and the ASR/ABS setup worked perfectly. I immediately bought another one. I was doing quite a lot of mileage with a fifty fifty mix of town and main road travelling and mine were A170 CDI’s with automatic transmission and Tempomat. In the end I bought something else just for a change 😀

[chrisswatchbox]

My dad an A160 of this exact year and color when we lived in Germany (which was ironic, because he was an American GM executive). This was the car I learned how to drive in after receiving my German Führerschein (drivers' license), and it was the ideal car for an 18-year-old high schooler. It had plenty of space for friends who wouldn't complain about the economy accommodations because they were high schoolers, it was easy to park in European cities, it had stability control and ABS, and it had enough but limited power. The fastest I could ever go was about 170 km/h on the Autobahn, and that was downhill with some help from the wind. This video brought back a lot of memories.

[dallinn]

I'm surprised you didn't bring up the A38 AMG that had two 1.9L engines in the front and back, powering both sets of wheels. Had an output of 250hp and did 0-100kmph in 5.9 seconds. Pretty rare car. Only 49 were imported here to Australia.

[BlakeWalsh]

21:10 "you need to be both weird and rich, and I got those bases covered" loolol

[AB-onon]

The ASR button is not for the system that stopped the A class from rolling over, it's just for the traction control. The system they had to install after the failed moose test is a electronic stability control (ESC or ESP in Germany), which obviously you couldn't switch off.
As a guy from Germany who was 12 or 13 years old when the moose test happened I remember that nearly instantly a lot of jokes occurred on that incident even by TV comedians.

[rodrigoccruz]

This car was for many in Europe the first opportunity to own a Mercedes. It was extremely popular and it's still a common sight in European roads. The one shown in the video is in really good condition.