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The Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class is a compact luxury roadster manufactured by Mercedes-Benz in three generations; R170 launched in 1996, the R171 in 2004 and R172 in 2011. Mercedes-Benz presented the SLK II concept car at the 1994 Paris Motor Show, showing off the "vario-roof". The car went on sale two years later in Europe, and in 1997 in the US. The SLK is built in Bremen, Germany. The designation "SLK" derives from the company's design mission to create a roadster that was at once sporty, light and short—in German: sportlich (sporty), leicht (light) und kurz (short).〔(The roadsters are back ) ''TIME'' William A. McWhirter / Detroit December 2, 1996.〕 From 2016, with the release of the fourth generation R173 model, the SLK-Class will be renamed to Mercedes-Benz SLC-Class as per the revised nomenclature adopted by the brand. Under this scheme, roadsters use the base name "SL", followed by the model's placement in Mercedes-Benz hierarchy. The "SL" is for sportlich leicht (German for sport light) and alludes the long-running SL-Class. This is followed by the letter "C"—the SLC being the roadster equivalent to the C-Class. ==About retractable hardtops and the SLK== Ben P. Ellerbeck created the first practical retractable hardtop prototype in 1922 — a manually operated system on a Hudson coupe that never went into production. The first French version was the Georges Paulin designed 1934 Peugeot ''601 Éclipse'' Mercedes-Benz took the initiative in the 1990s to present the automotive world with a re-newed retractable hardtop technology they called the "vario-roof".〔The SLK Vario-roof was first shown on the SLK II concept car at the 1994 Paris Motor Show. The car went on sale two years later in Europe, and in 1997 in the US. As one of the first modern retractable hardtop convertibles, the SLK joined the ranks of hardtop convertibles of this era including the 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT Spyder and other retractable hardtops such as the Peugeot 206cc, Lexus SC, Pontiac G6 and the Chrysler Sebring. The vario-roof is a hard roof that can fold down into the car automatically using an electrohydraulic system, this changing the car from what can be known as coupe, to a convertible.〔(The Mercedes SLK has the looks of a supercar, the feel and handling of a velvet glove. Not strictly badger friendly, though... - 2011 )〕 The cars of this style typically had either a "soft" fabric top (either manually or automatically open and shut), a fixed hard-top, or a hard-top that had to be removed with labor and be taken off the car. An older Mercedes with removable hardtop was the Mercedes-Benz 190 SL (1955-1963), and after that the "Mercedes-Benz W113" and so forth. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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