Yes, it's another car that looks like an MPV but has only five seats. Yes, it's another hatchback into a market that's already bursting at the seams. And yes, it's aimed at the school run or second car segment.
However, look a little closer, particularly at the front: your eyes do not deceive you, it does carry that icon of wealth, the motoring symbol of our Celtic Tiger and a favourite of builders, politicians and legal eagles.
While industry aficionados identify the B-Class as a five-seater mid-range MPV sports tourer, there's no need for the rest of us who don't live in the world of competitive pie charts or powerpoint presentations to consider it thus. For us it's a hatchback Mercedes, a logical addition to an ever-expanding model range.
It makes perfect sense: for years now motorists have been voting with their wallets for hatchbacks across Europe - even if the Irish buyer still loves a boot. The only problem was that while there was cut-throat competition in the mainstream area, the premium hatchback market was largely served by performance versions. Audi, with its A3, was one of the few hatchbacks with both badge cachet and regular hatchback looks.
More recently BMW entered the fray with its 1-Series. Unfortunately for most buyers, while it offered the badge kudos, it doesn't really fit the bill in terms of practicality.
Mercedes now hopes to plug that gap with its B-Class. It's comparable in size with the Golf Plus, has a decent spread of engine options, but most important of all, it has that three-pointed star.
To understand why it will sell, you only have to think of two potential customers: the long-time Golf owner seeking to trade up but not looking for a saloon, and the school-run drivers who find they don't actually need the big SUV.
For these buyers, the Golf or A3 was probably their only option if they wanted to keep their car park kudos as well. While the Ford Focus and Toyota Corolla are eminent cars, they don't have the upwardly mobile image these owners desire.
Admittedly, Mercedes did try and get into this market before with the A-Class, but in a market where models are adding bulk at a rate that would make a weightlifter jealous, it was just too tall and small to be considered a real rival. There was also an image gap between the rest of the Mercedes line-up and the A-Class.
The new B-Class closes that gap. Although it is based on A-Class underpinnings it's a larger more fully finished hatchback. The interior trim is also similar to the new A-Class, including the near vertical positioning of the steering wheel. Yet there's plenty of rear-seat legroom, ample enough to challenge the likes of the Focus and Golf.
In fairness to those much-denigrated marketing types, the people-carrying references do bear a grain of truth. It's able to cope with five adults and has a boot space of 554 litres. Add on Mercedes Easy-Vario system - where the back and front passenger seats can be removed quite easily - and that load capacity increases to a very impressive 2,245 litres.
Engines range from an underpowered 1.5-litre to a 2-litre turbo version. We've tested most of them but our test car this time was the B180 CDI, powered by a 2-litre turbodiesel unit (yes, yet again with Mercedes, the rear nomenclature bears little relationship to the engine). While it's relatively noisy at the start, it soon gets into its rhythm and is particularly adept at cruising speeds.
Perhaps the biggest downside to the B-Class is that while the Germans are selling it as a sports tourer, there's little sporting about it, certainly not with the smaller petrol engines. The large cabin means it's quite a bulky car between the wheels and it's never going to challenge the Gti brigade for sporting looks.
That said, it's handling was one of the greatest surprises to us, coping well with Irish roads and the steering, while suffering the usual Mercedes wooliness at speed, was certainly better than that offered on the C-Class.
If there were any major gripes, it was that the six-speed gearbox has reverse at a strange downward dog-leg, off first and second. The gearstick has to be lifted into it and it's awkward. The other issue we would have is that the centre console still has Mercedes's overly plastic façade, something that's hopefully going to be consigned to the bin once the new S-Class interior design filters through.
All round, the new B-Class is a welcome addition to the hatchback market, adding its own pedigree to the mix. It certainly has more youthful personality and functionality than its bigger sibling the C-Class.
The A-Class has always been a little too offbeat for our taste: too small to be taken seriously as a Mercedes and too tall to be taken seriously as a regular hatchback.
This is more in keeping with what a hatchback should be: practical yet stylish. The marketing people can call it what they want, to us it's a serious contender for all the badge conscious Golf owners who want to move up a rung on the corporate car park ladder.