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Testing is underway at the Nurburgring in Germany and Carparazzi pictures show a car that could be just a mild tweak of today's SLK. (Photo: Carparazzi) Photo Gallery
The all-new Mercedes Gullwing is up and running and so Benz is accelerating development of its next new sports car.
It's the replacement for today's compact SLK and it should be on the road sometime towards the end of 2011, although a motor show tease is likely in the back end of next year.
The next Mercedes-Benz SLK - which will be the third model to carry the badge - follows a familiar pattern. It is compact, with a folding hardtop roof, and will have a range of engines from a baby four through to a stonking AMG V8.
Testing is underway at the Nurburgring in Germany and Carparazzi pictures show a car that could be just a mild tweak of today's SLK. But the car is new and will come with some obvious visual changes from the current model.
First - if European sources are right - is a grille which is a cut down copy of the one fitted to the SLS supercar. It's part of a direction change on Benz sports cars, taking them away from an F1 look and more towards the retro direction used on the front end of the Gullwing coupe.
The next SLK will also come with daytime running lamps, a different style of door handles and bigger rear-vision mirrors standing up from the sides of the doors. This is a common change, also obvious on Porsche test cars, with new European regulations on the view from any side-mounted mirror.
