2012 Mercedes SLK 350
Each of the renowned German luxury car-makers offers a small two-seat sports car. Audi has the TT, BMW the Z4 and Mercedes the SLK. The other obvious player in the game is also from Germany — the Porsche Boxster. These are much-respected marques with reputations for engineering and execution making for some pretty fierce competition — and exceptional cars.
The newest one of these compact German roadsters is showing up in Mercedes stores as you read this — the 2012 SLK. Bristling with technology, style and new-found performance, this third-generation SLK has new looks, a new, more powerful and fuel efficient engine, a heavily reworked transmission and a host of new technologies and features.
It retains the classic long hood, short deck roadster proportions of the outgoing model. The compact passenger compartment sits well back, ahead of a foreshortened deck lid. The new SLK has been 'toughened up' with more abrupt angles from the easily-recognized upright Mercedes grill to a rear diffuser with integrated exhaust. The front end is wider with big air intakes at the lower outboard edges. Despite this more muscular front end, the design team managed to trim the coefficient of drag from an already impressive 0.32 to 0.30. The hood and fenders are made of aluminum in the interest of weight saving.
Perhaps the most impressive design accomplishment is the way the joint lines of the folding hardtop where it collapses into the trunk have been artfully hidden. Once again, that folding top is the source of some industry-leading technology. Mercedes introduced the folding fixed roof for roadsters with the first generation SLK in 1996.
With the second generation it brought us the AIRSCARF which directed a stream of warmed air to the neck and shoulders, greatly extending the 'top-down' season.
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