FIRST DRIVE MERCEDES SLK:Aggressive styling and a new interior could take the new SLK from being a sports car also-ran into a real contender, writes PADDY COMYN
THERE IS a programme on one of the satellite channels called Toddlers and Tiarasand if you haven't seen it, you should search it out. You will end up watching through your fingers as hefty US trailer park moms enforce their dreams of beauty pageant success on to their hapless children, who are dressed in outfits beyond their years.
That’s a bit how I feel about the new SLK. When it came to life in 1996, it was doe-eyed and innocent. Now 15 years later and the third-generation car has come all over all aggressive thanks to what looks like a face transplant from the SLS supercar.
It is nothing quite as crude as an SLS rip-off, but rather the new styling echoes the upright radiator grille and proud bonnet of roadsters gone by from Mercedes-Benz. Yet you feel that perhaps the SLK has been asked to grow up a little prematurely.
Then again it has never been really that easy to know what the SLK is trying to be. No matter how Mercedes has marketed it, the SLK has always been regarded as a bit of a sports car lightweight compared to the Porsche Boxster, BMW Z4 or Lotus Elise, even though you could buy AMG versions that would pull your eyelids off when you kicked down the throttle full tilt.
It was also more popular with women and Mercedes has sought to balance this appeal by attracting male buyers. As well as the aggressive styling, the new SLK has an improved interior. It has better seats and a new roof that comes in three different versions. The basic roof is painted in the car’s colour, or you can have it in tinted glass. You can also have it with what the Germans are calling “magic sky control”, which allows you to switch the glass colour from light to dark at the touch of a button.
We tried three engines at the international launch and these are the models that will be offered initially. For starters there are two 1.8-litre four-cylinder models, the 184bhp SLK 200 and the 204bhp SLK 250.
The SLK 350 has a V6 3.5-litre engine and that is the most powerful version now, though you can be certain of some more high-powered AMG variants down the line.
We didn’t get to try the SLK 250 CDi diesel that’s due at the end of the year. That will come with Band B emissions and 204bhp. It might just end up being the most prudent choice.
In the short term, the two four-cylinder petrol engines are what will sell and both are very good, although the more powerful SLK 250 suits the car better.
On some challenging roads around Tenerife, the SLK showed itself to be more competent as a sports car than before, with more feel and feedback from the steering while still immensely comfortable.
Even with a stable of variants to suit a variety of tastes and wallets, however, the market for cars like the SLK here is tiny. In 2007, one of its best years since launch, only 43 new SLKs were sold in Ireland. That dropped to 16 a year later and none in 2009.
If Mercedes manages to sell 20 this year, it would be quite an achievement.
There are no prices confirmed yet but we expect a starting tag of about €49,000, which is slightly less than its BMW Z4 rival. It’s a more muscular makeover than was expected on the SLK, but the jury’s still out on whether it will achieve mass appeal, particularly when Ireland has frugality and practicality on its mind.
C-Class: bringing its interior up to speed
In the world of the executive saloon, imperfections are rarely tolerated. And for the likes of BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz, when it comes to their core models, they can have even greater consequences.
For Mercedes-Benz, the C-Class is a car of massive significance, recording sales of more than 8.5 million so far in the car's life.
With the arrival of a new coupé model just around the corner, there has been a refresh to the saloon and estate car and, while there are some subtle changes to the car's exterior, the area where most commentators felt that the car needed improving was the interior.
If you got into an entry-level C-Class, it felt of lower quality than some mainstream, family saloons and in some markets, such as ours, where there is no such thing as a cheap C-Class, this simply didn't cut the mustard.
So this new version, which goes on sale early next month looks and feels significantly better, mainly where it matters: on the inside. For example, leather upholstery will come as standard and better materials are used throughout. There's a selection of new steering wheels and redesigned instrument clusters too. It is all significantly better. But then, it needed to be.
Naturally, Mercedes-Benz has taken this trip to the surgeons to make the engines more efficient and this has been aided by adding ECO start/stop as standard on the manual and automatic versions and there is a new 7G-Tronic automatic transmission, which is even better at sipping fuel. In Ireland, the engine line-up will mainly consist of three diesels and one petrol unit, with the 136bhp 200 CDI likely to be the big seller. The 170bhp 220 CDI, 204bhp 250 CDI and the 150bhp C180 petrol will join this. Emissions can be as low as 117g/km in the 220 CDI with a manual gearbox.
Prices start at €35,055 for the C180 petrol and €36,350 for the C200 CDI diesel. In Ireland this car has suffered from its proximity in price to the larger E-Class, but Mercedes-Benz in Ireland remains confident that it will still represent between one-fifth and one-third of total Mercedes-Benz new car sales in Ireland over the coming years.
Factfile
Mercedes-Benz SLK 200
Engine 1.8-litre four-cylinder petrol
Bhp 184 @ 5,250rpm
Torque 270Nm @ 4,600rpm
0-100km/h 9.2 seconds
Maximum speed 218km/h
L/100km (mpg) 6.1 l(46.3)
Emissions (tax) 142g/km (€302)
Starting price: €49,000 (estimate)
On sale May