Prepare to be seduced! B eing a four-seater cabrio I thought the CLK 320 was going to be one for wafting at sane speeds without ruffling the poise and sense of dress of my lord and lady who are expected to be chauffeured. Get behind the wheel of the car though and this thought is banished the moment you nail the throttle. The intelligent cog box gets into deliverance mode which has the smile running from ear to ear.

With Aspi zipping down to the NCAT at Ahmednagar for our instrumented data acquisition tests, the CLK 320 did a 10.05 second time for the zero to 100kmph dash, making it one of the quickest cars this magazine has ever tested. In fact the CLK effortlessly rattled off similar times in run after run and it was pointless to try and extract even more forward thrust. Thanks to the ever increasing premium self imposed by the CLK's maker on safety, the ESP was so perfectly integrated into the system that it was doing its job absolutely on the fine edge with nary any apparent obtrusiveness.

In sheer performance terms, the CLK was matchless especially if you also factor in how smoothly the 218 horses got into gallop or how strongly the 310Nm muscles began to flex. The entire experience is an intoxicating medley of velocity, feel of the tyres biting the road, the suspension just giving the right road feedback and not much through the steering wheel and the overall grip and poise of the car which never seemed to daunt the driver or its occupants a wee bit.

This is grand tourer motoring at its best and we just couldn't have had enough of it. The kickdown in all five gears was smoothly executed rather than rushed through, the Correvit data showing we were not exactly babying it. And as if to underline she has what it takes to assert itself, the CLK went on to record a 241.9kmph top speed without working up a sweat. As per its self-imposed Mercedes-Benz has electronically limited all its cars to a 250kmph top speed and the CLK can do this speed but what the heck, 241kmph plus is surely terrific stuff and with the top up it felt as if we were doing 150! The experience sure is heady enough when one glances at the speedo needle and also at the data spewing out from the Correvit.

PERFORMANCE: