[Shinigami]

I like the styling of the interior and exterior.

I'm a bit of a geek, so all those buttons go down just fine with me

Actually, I kinda felt "empty" while driving an SL 55 today. It felt like there was less stuff on the dash (although the doors, seat, etc, all had a lot more buttons here and there).

 

[Shinigami]

All those buttons do have a function tho'. Activate/deactivate ESP, seat heaters, airscarf, parktronic, door locks, etc...

This car has a lot more functions then the old one ever did, it's called "progression". Nobody is forcing anyone to buy stuff they don't want, so if you don't like it, just let it drop.

Having said that, the picture shows a "souped up" SLK, i.e. one with all the options you would ever need or want.

If you don't want them, you can get the standard radio with 3 times less buttons, no heated seats, airscarf and so on, which removed half the buttons on the middle row, and swap the bottom portion which is the airconditioning, to the simple 4 dial setup.

 

[Shinigami]

geekapoo - 3/18/2006 11:46 AM
The problem is that to make it look reasonable, you essentilly have to buy a car with little/no options.

I think it looks perfectly reasonable. But everyone has different taste.

A Lotus Elise has the bare minimum, and it looks good in its own way (then again, it's also a very different type of car).

There are many ways to do what has been done. In many cars, single buttons can be used for multiple functions. If I recall correctly, the old SLK had a single button to lock and unlock the car, the new one has two separate buttons.

All these buttons don't distract me at all, and I don't think it should be compared to talking on the phone which stimulates an entirely different portion of the brain requiring the speaker to create a mental image of the person on the other end of the line, and thus their attention is diverted from the road to the little thought bubble in their head.

Here, you want a minimalistic SLK dash, I did a little photochop, removed all the buttons in the middle row apart from those which must stay (even then, one of them is a blanc silver button which does nothing), and the stereo is one of the simplest ones you can have, enjoy: