Looks like a million bucks and built to stay that way!
The CLK cabrio is the only four-seater convertible in the Mercedes-Benz range, slotting between the SLK at the lower end and the drop-dead gorgeous SL500 at the rarified end. Four seat convertibles are a rarity these days and of the handful which are available, we certainly feel that the CLK ranks right at the top of the heap. I have always admired the swoopy lines of the CLK Coupe which with its Ford Mustang-like sloping roofline is an all-time great design detail with yours truly.

W hen the car was first announced, I was disappointed that Mercedes had decided to chop off the top and I dreaded to see the result after surgery. Thankfully, the men in the Stuttgart design studios have wielded their scalpels pretty smartly to turn the coupe into a ragtop endowed with matchless grace. You only have to see how the car sits at rest from any angle to appreciate the tenuous beauty of the package. And on the move she is virtually poetry in motion.

Many makers do not have the stomach to do a cabrio because of the extra structural rigidity needed to be built into the package. This means adding weight to stiffen up the monocoque. A glance at the spec sheet confirms it to be nearly 200 kilos more in weight than the equivalent hard top coupe version! Much underfloor strengthening as also major cross bracing has been undertaken to make the superstructure torsionally rigid and there is no flex while also ensuring that doors open and shut with the legendary solid thump associated with Mercs.

Aesthetically the CLK cabrio got a resounding 5-star verdict from all of us here at the magazine, especially in top-down form. And even with the woven fabric cover and the glass rear window in place, she exudes grace which is striking in its form and fit. Just like the SLK and the SL500, the CLK cabrio features an automatically retracting roof albeit one which is made of fabric but with a full-blown glass windshield in place. Though the mechanism to get the top to retract and close is a pretty complex affair, for the driver the operational part involves twisting a handle on the windshield header and then pressing a button on the dashboard. This gets the various motors whirring into action with first the rear part of the ragtop popping up, allowing a body-colour panel behind the rear seats to be raised for the ragtop to fold down into the recess below it. The fabric top folds way neatly on its own, and then the metal panel comes and folds flush with the rear deck to present a most classy appearance.

STYLE:
BUILD: