Punchy, pugnacious and strikingly handsome, while giving enough hints of a return to traditional Mercedes-Benz strengths of a decade and a half gone by, the SLK 350 is impressive in all its avatars one wants to explore, says the Editor, after six glorious days gunning the wailing V6-engined roadster through town and dale

Ever since I got to be of an age where the visual wasn’t enough to impress me, form following function being more in sync with why I craved for something more, the automotive equivalent I first got to grapple with were Mercedes-Benz two-seat roadsters. The 300SL Gullwing had so ingrained itself in my psyche and while first it was for the flip open doors, it really got my heart pounding when one took in the tubular spaceframe chassis and its derived from racing 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder engine and impeccable sporting record. That it had the measure of most Ferrari GTs and could wallop them in a straight fight only added to the allure of the car for both heart and mind.

Things didn’t mean much then when one set eyes on the pert little 190SL roadster, seemingly the small entry level foil for the 300SL in Merc’s line-up in the late 1950s. A small four-cylinder Mercedes roadster never made sense to me then and doesn’t do much to stir the senses to this day. However, as time went on and the curvy 300SL and 190SLs gave way to the more angular and upright 230SL and onwards, one began to see a pattern emerging. The mighty 450SL and SEL coupes were a hint that Mercedes-Benz had gone back to its roots and come up with the goods – big, brawny roadsters in soft top and fixed hard top forms, large inline twin cam six-cylinder engines to begin with before climbing on to torque crunchers with 4.5-litre V8s which on sheer muscle many a time made Italian thoroughbreds seem puny.

However, this didn’t last long in the modern age – the 1990s and the first decade of this century but Mercedes-Benz carried on its tradition of two-seat roadsters. The SLK followed and it was a successful product but something still didn’t feel right. It was too feminine, too fashionable for macho males and also seemed to be caught up in a transitory phase as its maker grappled with forces within itself as to how it should go about making cars – the honest to goodness time tested engineering over all else approach, or trying to be frugal, if not value engineering, to cut manufacturing costs down. The results of this approach are all there in the public domain but thankfully a few things have happened for the better. Mercedes-Benz has seen that its future lies in what it used to do best – engineer cars better than most – and has gone back to this dictum. Secondly, it wants to be able to retain its position as the leading manufacturer of premium roadsters in the world and hallelujah, the new 350 SLK seems to be the new face of a company rediscovering its mojo.

The last two generations of SLKs have been decent cars and in fact the last generation version did appear to draw inspiration from the McLaren-Mercedes SLR form to hint at something special. It could have worked had the SLR been a genuinely proficient machine all round rather than just being a sledgehammer in straight line tyre-shredding acceleration. This time round though there is a better inspiration and a more successful one to boot with more character traits of the past – yes, you guessed right, I am bringing in the SLS AMG with its wide, low stance, rippling muscular turnout, the right sort of engine placed midships ahead of the cockpit and driving the rear wheels and yes, the gullwing doors came back. All of a sudden retro seemed great and Mercedes knew what was expected of it for its next generation SLK range.

  

The first thing which strikes you is how handsome, rather than how pretty the new SLK is! And that is a first big positive for the new model. Being sketched around the SLS AMG is no small thing but the new wedge-shaped roadster has had the large heavy nose job wrought well with the rest of the package to present itself as bold and bountiful with a classic long hood, short deck approach. Having seen the same car kitted out with tasty AMG body add-ons, the SLK surely looks even better but hey, I am not complaining even with the base offering which is even hornier than any previous SLK.

That snout is best looked at when the car is on full attack mode and zipping it hot through fast sweeping corners and the rest comes around with just a hint of tail sliding out for both effect and pleasure. The new SLK has been toughened up with more abrupt angles from the easily recognised upright Mercedes grille to a rear diffuser with integrated exhaust. The front end is wider with big air intakes at its lower outboard edges. Despite this more muscular front end, the co-efficient of drag has been trimmed from an already impressive 0.32 to 0.30. The car looks best with its top down but given that we were blessed with both rain and shine in Pune for the week we had the SLK with us, the folding hard top is a boon and comes with the MagicSky option, able to transform the glass panoramic roof from clear to tinted at the push of a button – magic indeed!