The trunk is another, decidedly sadder, story. With the top down, its meager 9.5 cubic feet of storage space dwindles to a pathetic 5.8. Happily, the CLK320 is as delightful to drive as it is to look at. It is particularly solid for an open car. It is also very quiet for a convertible, thanks, in part, to the sound-deadening insulation in the top.
Power is another positive note.
That brisk progress to 60 makes this the quickest four-seat open car that Benz has ever built. It also can be seen as an exercise in cost-cutting. It is built with three valves per cylinder, not four, and with a pair of camshafts, not a quartet. Those component reductions don't do anything for the performance bottom line, but they help the counting house's bottom line. While it accelerates well, the car's real strength is highway cruising.