The new Mercedes SL drop-top– due in 2019 – and revealed here in our exclusive images – will clean up its act considerably, and share a lot more than ever before with its baby brother in the range, the SLK roadster.
Mercedes is on a mission to improve the efficiency of its new models, even sports cars, both in terms of the CO2 they emit and the speed at which they can be built.
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Part of that improvement has been achieved with the adoption of the MFA and MRA common modular architectures for front and rear-wheel-drive models. It allows cars like the A-Class, CLA and GLA all to be built on the same lines, which simplifies the production process and gives the company greater flexibility.
However automobile express has learned that Mercedes now plans to launch a third architecture that will underpin both the new SL and the SLK replacements.
The SL currently has its own bespoke chassis platform, but will switch to the new modular sports car architecture (or MSA for short) by the end of this decade.
Mercedes is currently developing this in Germany, and it indicates the cars will share certain elements, like the front bulkhead and parts of the suspension, and indicates all the cars using this chassis will be built in the same factory in Bremen.