Crossfire

I'm not sure if the guy who bought one has WEB access. (LOL)

I had to make a joke but apparently sales are pretty bad. Consumer Reports gave it a thrashing. Basically it supposed to be an archaic Mercedes design. Mercedes will have a new model with its own badge soon.

By archaic you mean this year's model, or last year's? Don't be stupid. It's basically a Mercedes SL, built in Germany, with a boattail top, priced in the 30's. Not bad, if anybody wanted that sort of thing. So far, nobody does.

As a two seater priced in the mid 30's, they won't expect to sell many, but I read in R&T today that sales have been worse than expected. The convertible, apparently, is coming out, and the prices have been lowered, and there may be an RT version, all to help get it going. I think it looks great, but of course it's so very impractical, only somebody with several other new cars would buy one.

SLK. Convertible ("Roadster") already out and shown on Chrysler.com and .de websites.

Prices are shown and, just as a check, I looked at the inventory of a Philadelphia dealer -- in stock.

Built largely by Karmann of Osnabrueck, who build the CLK cabrio and many other convertibles.

DAS

Putting new sheet metal on a 1997 design and thinking you will fool sports car enthusiasts is pretty stupid.

I dunno, BMW did it with the Z3 (front half of a 1991 car and the back half of a 1984 car, sold for the first time in, I believe, the end of

1995) and it worked like a charm. Let's not forget the Jaguar XK8, which in 2004 rolls on a chassis first developed in 1969 for the XJ6, or the outgoing Discovery which shared dimensions with the 1971 Range Rover. There have been plenty of new silk purses sewn from old sow's ears.

More pertinently, the 1997 (well, it's older than that, as it is related to the first-gen Cheap-class) platform does a lot of things perfectly well, so it isn't even a sow's ear, really. It is not terribly sporting in character but it is relatively solid and decent to drive.

Its primary competition is the Audi TT, which is based on the Mark IV Golf of equal vintage to the SLK. And the SRT-6 looks like it will be a fun way to experience the AMG Kompressor V6 in its most affordable installation.

The car's only real problem is that the market for two-seaters just isn't that large and it is populated by people with cast-in-stone brand loyalties. The SRT-6 is likely to be as quick and fast as an auto-tranny C5, whether convertible or hardtop, but how many Vette loyalists are going to shop at the Chrysler store?

I predict the car will see additional success as the 300 continues to halo the brand and bring a different group of people into the showrooms.

There was one convertible amongst the Crossfires at our "Gold Medal Tour" marketing day by DaimlerChrysler Canada yesterday in Mississauga near Toronto.

They and the coupe looked smart, rode and drove nicely. I thought the manual control of the automatic strange as it was pull left to go down a gear, push right to go up. You had to pull left all the way from Drive, 4, 3, 2, to get first for a drag start! When you wanted to get into drive you have to push through each. It probably makes sense to someone who has a motorbike (or a sequential racing box) but seemed odd to me. The PT Cruiser Convertible Turbo at least had a different slot for manual selection and you could go back to drive whatever manually selected gear you were in. They were still "left for down and right for up". Somehow "forward and backward" for gear changes seems more logical to me. That may be affected by having used the regular low positions on an automatic, and my wife's Zoom Zoom Mazda 3 Sport.

Also drove a 300c on a mini-test track to try to see the effect of ESP. Difficult to establish the circumstances to really feel it, but the cars rode nicely and felt that there was some life under the hood/bonnet. Certainly the pull away at the start from a greased metal panel showed the traction control part of ESP working well.

The briefest part of the day was the driven trips around the damp parking lot circuit in an SRT4 - very lively; the SRT 10 - extremely lively; and then the Viper!

The circuit was set up so that the people queuing could see the drift on the vehicles as they exited the last turn and started towards the staging point. The SRT 10 was the most impressive as it seemed as though it could be held in the drift the longest.

The car has the outgoing CLK chassis which, while not the world's latest, works quite well. The engine is the same 90 degree, 3 valve/cyl bent 6 used in everthing from C-Class and E-Class cars to M-Class SUV's.

If you like the looks of the Crossfire and if you fit the fairly tight cabin, it is worth considering.

Did you hit your head getting into the Crossfire? I did and it still hurts.

But alas, the service manager told me he and some mechanics did the same thing.

OTOH, the 300 has plenty of head room. I really like the car.

Ken

That would seem to be a big issue right there. We looked at them recently and I didn't fit. At 6' 220 I'm a little bigger than average but geez.. Head bent to the side, knees in the dash board and hips dug in to the door and console. I don't see how anyone over 5' could fit in this contraption comfortably.

Steve B.

SLK.

CLK is a 4-seater.

DAS

Do you mean you had to 'tap' the gear lever each time to change? I.e. pull left and release to get 4, pull and release to get 3 etc?

If so, that's standard Merc gear change.

Note that most Merc drivers (in Europe!...) would not dream of drag starts... :-))

DAS

Yep, SLK. Sorry about that.

On a related note, I just read a test in Autoweek of the SRT-6 which has the motor from the previous SLK AMG. The main thing they seemed not to like was the imprecise steering feel due to the car's having recirculating ball steering rather than rack and pinion. The estimated

0-60 is 5 seconds with auto trans.

No, but I am "vertically challenged" :)

I used to hit my head getting into my Unipower (Mini-Cooper S based special) but it was only 1.02 metre (40 inches to the roof from the ground). comparatively the Crossfire is huge!

I do sit reasonable tall (!) and I thought that there wasn't a lot of headroom. As it was a "jump in and and drive" I didn't spend much time adjusting the seat - slid it forwards so I could reach the pedals! - so I don't know whether there is any height and steering wheel adjustment that might work better for taller folk.

I am not sure that I liked the relatively low seating position of the 300 (I expect that is adjustable but didn't play with it) as it does seem to make the car seem very big. If I were in the market, I'd want to experiment with the driving position adjustments before committing.

There was a fully automatic mode (D). If you pull left, you get 4 and it re-centres. You pull left again and get 3 etc.

So having sidled up to the stop sign in D, it was left (4), left (3), left (2), left (1) and then hard right foot. At the appropriate spot, push right to get 2nd. As I was then up to the car in front I wanted to get fully automatic mode, but needed to do right (3), right (4), right (D) for that.

I don't want this to sound like a big deal. It was only about 1/2 inch deflection and it was quick.

On the PT cruiser there was another notch rearwards of (D) that put it in "manual selection mode" and then you use right and left as above. The benefit of the cruiser approach is that you can go to automatic from any manually selected gear by moving the lever forwards.

I think the separate gate-area to the side of (D) on the Mazda is more natural. Then you pull back to go up and push forward to go down. Again at any time you can go back to automatic.

The other thing I don't recall seeing was whether the selected gear was displayed in the dash. It was displayed somewhere but iirc it was by the shifter. Looking down to check the gear status is probably not a good thing, but you shouldn't need to look often. Again not to try to sell Mazdas, but they display the gear in the speedo (which I do look at from time to time) so there us a good reminder if I have left it in 3rd around town.

It is based on the MB SLK. No folding hard top for the Crossfire.

------------ Alex

Whether a Crossfire is "good" or "bad" depends on what you are looking for. If you want a fire breathing sports car, a Crossfire is not your car. If you want cool looking (IMO) GT, and if you fit the car comfortable, the Crossfire could be a good choice.

The Crossfire may be an "archaic" Mercedes-Benz design, but an old MB design is as good as or better than most other car companies' new designs.