#Mercedes slk kompressor manual#
#Mercedes slk kompressor plus#
#Mercedes slk kompressor series#

Unfortunately one of the reasons for these low prices is the car’s complexity, plus unfortunately poor build quality. Even the very best, like the one at Rix Motors in Warrington, will only muster £5950. A Birmingham dealer is selling an unusual green one with 113k miles for £1695 complete with warranty. This one, laden with Special Edition options when new, cost its owner just £700, and we found one with just 87k miles on the clock in Leicester for £1900. Incredibly, given its abilities and £32k price tag when new, the SLK230 Kompressor is the cheapest car here.

And it’s also interesting to see how BMW, in evolving the Z3’s Z4 successor, has gone down the electric-hardtop sequential-shift route.

#Mercedes slk kompressor manual#

Ultimately, it robs you of the kind of tactile involvement that the Mazda really excels at – the steering doesn’t kick back at you, there’s no scope for clutch control or jumping two ratios in the automatic, and if you do manage to find a rare manual it’s a clunky, longwinded affair that makes the Porsche’s shift feel like the Mazda’s.īut no other car here is quite so adaptable. But with roof down, Sport mode off, leaving the gearbox to do its own thing and settled in to relaxed wafting down a motorway, it’s – well, a Mercedes-Benz SL. With roof up, Sport mode engaged and shifting manually, it’s a compact and defthandling coupé to bother BMWs with. The result is a remarkable dual-role machine. Roof up, you hear little squeaks and rattles, but those slabs of steel effectively brace the car in a way that no canvas top could hope to. There is scuttle-shake though, although you can pretty-much neutralise it by pressing down on the little plastic model roof and watch the Vario perform in reverse. Insulated it may be, but it’s precise, and similar to the MGF. But unlike Mercs of yore there isn’t a slack dead-zone in the middle. Once you’re acclimatised to moving the gear lever right to shift up and left to shift down, you can go on a proper B-road attack in the SLK.Īdmittedly its recirculating-ball steering lacks feel and feedback compared to the rack-and-pinion setups it’s up against here. Thankfully though it has a manual-override mode that allows ratios to be flicked through sequentially, and changes are near-instantaneous so long as they’re accompanied by a throttle lift. Left to its own devices, changes on the automatic gearbox are slow-witted. Flick the gearbox into Sport mode and it holds ratios a little longer, the supercharged 2.3-litre straight-four whooshing and screaming beyond 5000rpm, genuinely translating into Boxster-humbling pace. Compared to the cramped Z3 and ergonomically awkward Boxster, its driving position is straight-legged and hard to fault. The deliberate dischord between the angles of doors and bonnet, and the way the rear light clusters eat into as much of the sides as they do the rear, bring to mind Nineties postmodern architectural forms from the likes of Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind, all clashing steel shards and towers of unusual glass formations.ĭon’t let its almost inevitable automatic gearbox fool you into thinking it’s not a proper sports car. Viewed side-on, the SLK is a striking wedge. Interestingly, 300SL bonnet humps aside, Mercedes designer Bruno Sacco avoided the retro-inspiration road paved by Mazda, BMW and Porsche. Mercedes even went to the extent of ensuring its angles mimicked those of a Fifties 300SL’s gullwing doors as it arced backwards. One that I’m about to enjoy the fruits of as I hold back the little roof-shaped switch on the centre console.Īn SLK’s Vario-Roof in action is pure automotive theatre. In 1993, rather than releasing a concept car in the manner of Porsche, Mercedes filed a patent. But it needed a USP of a kind its rivals couldn’t muster.

#Mercedes slk kompressor series#

By 1991, Mercedes was feeling the need for something smaller and cheaper, based on the shortened floorplan of its forthcoming C-class 3 Series rival.

Its big-brother R129 SL was considered one of the finest cars in the world upon its 1989 launch, retaining R107 deportment while adding Corvette-like sportiness. The R170 Mercedes-Benz SLK is another German recession-baby.