How do you make the brain of your best friend’s wife explode? Buy a convertible and use it for school pick up with the roof down.
Owner: Noel B
- Best convertible driver’s car
- You have to pay extortion Mercedes dealer rates to service it
How do you make the brain of your best friend’s wife explode? Buy a convertible and use it for school pick up with the roof down. Make sure it looks good standing still and leave everyone with the appearance that the trophy girlfriend is about to get into the passenger seat instead of your child.
Two-door Mercedes convertibles have that envy factor without being branded as the Porsche-driving convicted-socially-undesirable-wannabe tag. I bought the SLK 250 a few months after my brother and father had died within four months of each other. I needed something that could make less a void of despair that could not be made whole. Something that I could use every day. Do the shopping with it. Drive it with the roof down and cause the odd cerebral brain explosion.
I started with Boxsters. Real quick but hopelessly impractical. That rag top roof made it claustrophobic. What is that plastic “in your face” dash? Who dreamed that one up?
A Lotus Elise? What a car. Just where do you park it? You don’t climb into a Lotus. It’s more like contorting yourself to fall into it.
That left the SLK and the Z4. The SLK had style written all over it. The Z4 drove like the athlete who just missed out on their peak form. The Merc though exemplified what a car should be. Quick in action and sharp in execution. That 4-cylinder twin turbo has as much pull as a straight six. No lag. Very smooth with acceleration consistent with a 0-100 time in the low 6s. About as quick as the HSV I traded for it – except I can put the roof down.
It has all the electronic creature comforts of Bluetooth, sat nav, park assist as well as the safety devices for which Mercs are renown, such as ABS, parking sensors, side impact and rollover protection.
The attention to detail is incredible. The boot is just big enough to fit two standard size boxes of fruit. I fit the family shopping of four, consisting of two boxes of fruit and vegetables, two trays of berries and six full shopping bags. It is deceptively spacious for a boot.
With most of the weight over the rear wheels, the car has a tendency to oversteer when pushed at the limit but those limits are very high and well beyond road legal speeds. Handling up to the limit is neutral and balanced. It turns and doesn’t disappoint. It welcomes you into the cabin at the end of a day and cheers you up all the way home, leaving lesser machines in its wake.
If only Mercedes kept on making it but saved 100kg in weight. Nevertheless, as is, which of us would reject the supermodel that put on 5kg after modelling for Versace? Hope you enjoyed the review.
Owner: Noel B
MORE: Everything Mercedes-Benz
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