Over the ensuing 53 years of its life, however, the SL designation has come to mean Sport-Luxury rather than Sport-Light, as more technology and creature comforts were crammed between the rails-to be fair to the original concept, mostly in response to a pampered American buyer who's gobbled up the lion's share of SL production. Engineering has fought a good battle against the resulting weight gains, but the SL came to be seen more often in a country club's parking lot than on a challenging back road...but that's not to demean the car's success. Its reputation as a luxurious boulevard cruiser is golden, but about the only time you'll read SL and sports car in the same sentence is in a company brochure or a biography of Stirling Moss.
The process of sporting up the SL began with a revised exterior that trades the soft lines of the outgoing model for a crisply creased, more masculine presence. The front section is completely new, its pronounced V-shaped nose and larger radiator grille accentuating forward thrust and wide stance, arguably the most dynamic visual elements of a sports car. The single-bar grille, side air outlets, and power domes in the hood link the new look to past SLs, but the steeply sloping front end and new bi-Xenon headlamp clusters, as well as larger side mirrors and new taillamps, help bring the SL into line with Mercedes's current design idiom. It's a big step beyond the understated, almost Q-ship approach of the recent past, but, important when dealing with a company treasure, the 2009 avoids any radical break from the SL's evolutionary path.
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