Junkyard Gem: 1998 Mercedes-Benz SLK 230

For far more than 20 a long time, the people in Stuttgart developed sporty roadsters dependent on the C-Course chassis, ultimately killing off the SLC through the 2020 product 12 months. The very first of those autos to arrive on our shores was the SLK 230, which debuted below as a 1998 design. Its retractable hardtop recognized a craze for convertibles that only not long ago has finished as their complexity and bodyweight (not to point out extended-expression upkeep) weren’t worthy of whatsoever gains they possessed around ever more enhanced cloth roofs. Almost a quarter-century afterwards, here’s one of all those ’98s, photographed in a San Francisco Bay Place self-provider yard.

For 2001, the SLK 320 and its V6 engine grew to become available below, but the U.S.-current market SLKs for 1998-2000 have been all 230s.

This 2.3-liter supercharged inline-four manufactured 190 horsepower, which is about what the 6-cylinder BMW Z3 produced. You could get this car or truck with a handbook transmission, but this 1 (like approximately all U.S.-marketplace SLKs) has the automatic.

These engines are a lot easier to discover now than when I wrote the definitive guidebook to low cost junkyard superchargers, so I will want to pull 1 and find out its strategies.

These crimson-and-black leather seats are pretty snazzy.

Later on, DaimlerChrysler utilised this auto as the basis for the Chrysler Crossfire, which was available for the 2004-2008 model many years (soon after the SLK experienced long gone to a new platform).

Peter Pan displays up with a new SLK and you can fly yet again!