It’s probably fair to say that reviewers of cars don’t do as much as we could in the way of crash-testing. Asking some questions about a new model’s crumple zones by, say, slamming the car into a concrete wall at 88kph, is generally held to be exceeding one’s brief as a motoring reporter, not to mention stretching the courtesy of the manufacturer who has been kind enough to lend you the car in the first place.
Thus, when a manufacturer heralds the arrival of, for example, a new bonnet shape designed to throw pedestrians away from the car in a collision rather than draw them in under the radiator, we tend to take their word for it in preference to setting up a properly inquisitive, independent trial of our own. The general feeling within journalism is that crash-testing is for dummies.
Which is why I am pleased to announce that I was able to subject a car to the rigours of an unsimulated impact scenario. Okay, so it wasn’t what any even halfway self-respecting dummy would call a crash. But it was definitely an incident involving car-on-car action and having important repercussions for my impression of the strength and build-quality of the new Mercedes SLK roadster.
Picture a busy suburban street in the rain. In front of me, a man in an Astra Estate decides to ease the congestion by backing up. There follows a sickening crump. We parked. The driver’s eyes betrayed anxiety, which might have been because he had whumped into a brand-new German sports car in a fetching shade of blackberry, but was more likely connected to the fact that these days, when you step from your car following an incident with another motorist, you never know whether you are going to meet someone with a baseball bat.
But the new Mercedes isn’t fitted as standard with a baseball bat: there isn’t room for one in that snug, leather-plastered, design-crazy, two-seater cabin. You get a plastic trunk under the armrest between the seats and a fold-down container in the back for books and maps — handy in their own way, but useless for weapons.
So I emerged barehanded, to the relief of the other man, who was comforted to see that on my face was one of those expressions that only arises from having an accident that is not your fault in a car that does not belong to you. Thus arrayed, we came together between our vehicles for some post-impact structural analysis.
Let’s start with his. Above the exhaust pipe, in the back bumper, there was a hollow such as a drunk might make by repeatedly punching a motel wall in fury. By my reckoning, the impact had diminished the Estate’s interior load space by the size of a labrador’s head. There was also, possibly, some damage to the exhaust pipe.
And on my Merc? Absolutely nothing. We crouched at the car’s front in a state of disbelief, running our hands over the bodywork, seeking a dent, a scratch, even a scuff. But there was nothing. You would have thought we had imagined the accident — except for the proof of his grunged-up car.
Our eyes met. It was a spooky, quite trembly moment. We were present at the miracle of life everlasting — or at least at the miracle of a damn near unspoilable front spoiler.
I would have fallen in love with the SLK at that moment, if I hadn’t already done so. This is a second-generation version of the car launched to acclaim eight years ago. It oozes questionable taste and playboy bravado, costs far too much and is completely unnecessary, but has the best electronically opening roof known to man.
The car also has precociously winking headlights, a stubby yet active shape, and none of that bulk and heft that tend to make Mercedes cars such an imponderable statement. It also goes like the clappers.
I drove the relatively humble four-cylinder SLK 200 model in lazy automatic mode and lay back and let it silently soar around. I have no idea what happens in the range-topping SLK 55, with its V8 engine, but you probably need a parachute.
And it’s indestructible. I know. I tested it. — Â