LAST AUTO NEWS – SLK GULLWING SET FOR TAKE-OFF
Last Auto account – SLK Gullwing set for abandonment Classic Gullwing physique administration meets avant-garde amalgam technology as Mercedes readies new SLK flagship
A beauteous new Mercedes sports car is about to yield flight – barbecue your eyes on the SLK Gullwing! Auto Express has abstruse that the German close is planning a babyish brother to its accessible flagship SLC supercar – and what’s more, it’s traveling to be a hybrid, too.
The archetypal draws on the allegorical Mercedes 300SL â??Gullwing’ and approaching SLC – as previewed in Issue 941 – with a brace of doors that are hinged in the average of the roof. And it will sit at the actual top of the next-generation SLK range, accouterment a arresting and adorable battling to Porsche’s Cayman S and Audi’s TT RS.
As you can see from these pictures, the new SLK will be abundant added able-bodied than the accepted car, with a bluff attending previewed by the new E-Class (see right). The beanie is continued and appearance faired-in lights and a ample three-pointed star, while beneath is a Formula One-style splitter.
But as able-bodied as getting amazing to attending at, the new archetypal will be green, too. In fact, it’s the eco-friendly amalgam technology that’s fabricated the Gullwing aperture architecture accessible in the aboriginal place. That’s because this SLK alternative will use array packs amid in its ancillary sills. Because the sills charge to be top to board the packs, designers hit on the abstraction of axis a abeyant blemish into a virtue, accumulation them with the roof-mounted doors to actualize a babyish brother to the SLC.
It’s acceptable the range-topping SLK will use the aforementioned avant-garde lithium-ion array technology as the Blue Zero E-Cell abstraction which debuted at the Detroit Motor Show beforehand this month. It has batteries that drive an electric motor, and the archetypal can run for about 120 afar afore defective to be recharged.
In the SLK, this aggregate will be teamed with a petrol engine, possibly a development of the 3.5-litre V6 acclimated in the accepted car. With a brake-energy about-face arrangement – like the KERS start-up on this season’s Formula One cars – additional stop-start, the SLK Gullwing would be acutely efficient, with ammunition abridgement of about 40mpg and CO2 emissions of 150g/km.
Performance will be superb, too. Combined with the V6 engine, the petrol-electric start-up would accept as abundant torque as a approved V8. And with the electric motor acceptable the engine beneath abounding burke and up hills, owners could apprehend alarming acceleration, with 0-60mph in 5 abnormal and a top acceleration of 155mph. Fine-tuning of the achievement and administration is acceptable to be agitated out by Mercedes’ AMG division.
The babyish Gullwing is still some way off yet, though. It’s acceptable that the new SLK ambit will go on auction in 2011, with this flagship adaptation accession in 2012. The SLK will abide to be rear-wheel drive, although changes to the agency will cover a slight access in size, and the availability of a folding bottle roof for the aboriginal time.
Mercedes’ new SLK is not the alone aloft development at the abate end of the firm’s range. It is aswell planning a new front-wheel-drive A-Class-based roadster, which would gun for BMW’s 1-Series Convertible. It’s accepted to access in 2010, and will draw its administration afflatus from the Vision SLA abstraction car.
In the meantime, able-bodied heeled buyers don’t accept continued to delay to see the SLK Gullwing’s bigger brother. The new flagship SLC supercar, which will sit aloft the SL, is set to accomplish its all-around admission in the next few months. Boasting an all-new aluminium spaceframe and an AMG-developed 550bhp 6.2-litre V8, it will amount about £120,000 and go on auction by the end of the year.
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