Report: Mercedes-Benz SL and SLK will go without the auto hard top in the future
Well that sounds romantic. While the folding metal roof may help out with safety, sound deadening and year round useability, it can make the car more costly to design and build, give a less romantic appearance, and weigh the car down a bit more. That last one may be the nail in the coffin for Merc’s bean counting boffins, but it’s also a green thing too. If Mercedes intends upon selling any number of SLs, they are going to have to increase its fuel economy and reduce its emissions, something that’s none too easy with the ever expanding weight of the SL, which used to stand for super light, but of course, with a two-ton convertible, who is going to call it a super light car?
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Continuing on this vein of spend thrift car design and implementation goes the inclusion of a four pot and six pot engine lineup. Potentially eschewing the use of an eight cylinder at all, Mercedes will likely use turbocharged versions of existing engines to include the following outputs: 238 for the four in the SLK and 333-435 bhp for the six cylinder. It’s certainly more than enough for a lightened car, but we will have to wait a while to see if it is enough for AMG’s tastes. We’re betting that it probably will not be, given the previous history of 500+ horsepower in the AMG variants of the SL.
-By: Sawyer Sutton
Source: AutoNation