Auto News & New car review

Mercedes-AMG, stashed away in tiny Affalterbach, Germany, not far from Stuttgart, has been building fast street cars and winning racecars for more than 35 years, first as an independent tuner of Mercedes-Benz cars, then as a partner company and now as a wholly owned subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz. AMG predates BMW’s M, Audi’s S, Jaguar’s R, Toyota’s TRD and Nissan’s Nismo, all of the in-house tuners, by decades, and sells in higher volumes than any other tuner arm, to the tune of 20,000 cars and trucks last year alone.

 

Mercedes-AMG, stashed away in tiny Affalterbach, Germany, not far from Stuttgart, has been building fast street cars and winning racecars for more than 35 years, first as an independent tuner of Mercedes-Benz cars, then as a partner company and now as a wholly owned subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz. AMG predates BMW’s M, Audi’s S, Jaguar’s R, Toyota’s TRD and Nissan’s Nismo, all of the in-house tuners, by decades, and sells in higher volumes than any other tuner arm, to the tune of 20,000 cars and trucks last year alone.

 

In its new role, AMG is a full-fledged engineering company of some 650 performance specialists that does all the things Mercedes-Benz needs to turn its regular production cars into high-performance cars: more power, more torque, bigger brakes, hardier suspension, bigger wheels and tires and special AMG cosmetics. Starting a couple of years ago, and from now on, there will be an AMG version of every car that Mercedes-Benz makes.

 

That policy extends to the brand-new SLK steel-top roadster that just went on sale in the U.S. a few weeks ago. The standard version is the SLK350, with a brand-new 268-horsepower, 3.5-liter four-valve V6 engine and seven-speed automatic transmission, a package that already outpowers the German roadster competition from Audi, BMW and Porsche.

 

The good news is that, starting next month, there will be a new high-performance version, the SLK55 AMG, which will be built around a naturally aspirated 5.5-liter, three-valve V8 engine producing 355 hp at 5,750 rpm and 376 pound-feet of torque, a power plant that puts the SLK roadster in a class by itself, much closer in performance to a Chevrolet Corvette than any of the German roadsters or Japanese coupes (the previous AMG version used a supercharged 3.2-liter V6 engine, so this is the first SLK V8 ever). Mercedes-AMG says that the upgraded roadster will do 0-to-60-mph sprints in 4.7 seconds, and zero to 125 mph in 17.5 seconds.

 

The engine is coupled with a heavy-duty seven-speed automatic overdrive transmission with full manual control of upshifting and downshifting with either steering wheel buttons or the shifter.

 

The AMG package engineered for the new SLK, which is much sportier-looking, longer, wider, taller and about 100 pounds heavier than the outgoing SLK roadster, touches every major system in the car. The front MacPherson strut suspension is upgraded along with the multilink rear suspension, with recalibrated gas shock absorbers and larger stabilizer bars. The Dunlop Pilot Sport II tires specified by AMG for their version of the SLK are 225/40ZR-18s at the front and 245/35ZR-18s in the rear, mounted on AMG’s own spectacular-looking 18-spoke aluminum alloy wheels.

 

The SLK55 AMG’s brakes are a completely new design for AMG, using a compound steel and aluminum alloy construction on the front brakes, with steel discs and aluminum centers that carry heat away faster and allow a greater degree of deflection. The front brakes are 13.4-inch ventilated and perforated discs with six-piston calipers and the rears are 13-inch ventilated and perforated discs with four-piston calipers, hugely oversized for a car that weighs only 3,400 pounds, automatic steel folding top and all.

 

Like all AMG products, the new SLK55 gets special front, rear and side bodywork treatments, and in the front, the SLK resembles the larger and more expensive SL55 AMG as well as the Mercedes-McLaren SLR supercar, and has clear glass foglamps and integrated intake and exhaust ducts for air to the engine oil cooler. It has special rocker panel moldings along the side, four oval exhaust pipes (another trademark of AMG) and a stationary rear spoiler that reduces rear end lift at speed by some 36 percent.

 

The AMG-designed interior package includes napa leather sport bucket seats with body-grabbing Alcantara leather inserts, an AMG sport steering wheel with the shifter buttons built in, AMG instrumentation and special brushed stainless steel door sill plates.

 

Standard equipment includes ABS, traction control, ESP chassis control, AM/FM/CD sound system, a power tilt and telescope steering wheel, automatic climate control, heated seats and the Vario roof, which takes only 22 seconds to put up or down at the touch of a button, with just six options: DVD-based satellite navigation, the AirScarf neck and head heating system for more comfortable open-air motoring in chilly weather, bi-xenon headlamps, automatic air conditioning, surround sound audio and a tire-pressure monitoring system.

 

We drove the striking new SLK55 AMG in the country outside Marseille, France, including over a hundred miles of two-lane country roads and a whole bunch of hot laps at the famous Paul Ricard racing circuit. It is drenched with low-down, point-and-squirt power, torque and acceleration, with quite a loud exhaust note, whether the steel top is up or down.

 

The new megabrakes allow the driver to wait until the last possible moment to decelerate hard and then turn into a 90-degree or better corner, then the engine takes over again, throwing the car and its occupants into the next situation at warp speed. It steers precisely, and the ride is more than a little bit choppy, a function of its short wheelbase and performance suspension settings.

 

The matte black cockpit finish is very businesslike and quite sporty, and the deep bucket seats are supportive and comfortable, up to a point. Although the cockpit of this new SLK model is larger and roomier than the first-generation SLK, the seats’ fore/aft travel is still limited, which can be a problem for taller drivers and passengers.

 

That one niggle aside, though, the SLK55 AMG is a thoroughly competent sports car now, with everything it needs to be a comfortable, capable high-performance standout. The bad news is that the price will end up round about $60,000, and there will only be about 1,000 cars a year sent to the U.S. market, with the first shipment only weeks away.