New Mercedes SLK perfect for a drive around Mallorca

By ALASTAIR SLOANE, motoring editor

The tourist people go all gooey over Mallorca. It's the jetsetters' new El Dorado, the Florida of Europe, they say. It blends ancient culture with a 21st-century hustle.

Those of them who read tea leaves say Mallorca was always going to be a main attraction: it is on the same longitude as Paris and the same latitude as Rome.

Elton John has a house there. Supermodel Claudia Schiffer has two. Michael Douglas owns an estate and cultural centre. Writer Kingsley Amis lived there. So did Peter Ustinov and Charlie Chaplin.

It is said that Frank Sinatra's ex-wife Ava Gardner adored her white-washed villa in the artists' village of Deia, in the hills near Valldemossa.

Mallorca is the largest of Spain's Balearic Islands. The smallest is Menorca. In the Castellano language, mallor means "largest" and menor "smallest." Life and language, say locals, is best when it's simple.

The island, 40 minutes by air from Barcelona, became a fashionable retreat for Europe's well-heeled after Polish composer and pianist Federico Chopin arrived in 1838, seeking the island's annual 300 days of sunshine to cure his ailing, TB-infected lungs.

He moved into a house in Valldemossa with his lover, the writer George Sand, and a piano. Valldemossa is a beautiful village high in the hills on the northwest of the island. Sand wrote the novel A Winter in Mallorca there. Its title is still used as a slogan for the cultural events that take place in Mallorca. The house is a tourist attraction. So is the piano Chopin used to compose some of his work. A red rose, to symbolise the love Chopin and Sand had for each other, always sits on the piano. That she left him in 1839, not long before he died, isn't mentioned.

Chopin is buried in Paris. His heart is entombed in a pillar in the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw, Poland. His spirit, say those in Mallorca, is in Valldemossa.

The first celebrity to follow Chopin's footsteps was the Archduke Luis Salvador of Habsburg, in 1867. He fell in love with the daughter of the carpenter of Valldemossa, whose name was Catalina.

The Archduke stayed on the island for 30 years, living in nearby Deia, among olive and fig trees and across the road from the church square.

Spain's King Carlos lives in Mallorca, too, for a few weeks during the summer. His holiday home, the Marivent Palace, overlooks the port of Palma.

Some of his businessman friends bought it for him 20-odd years ago, when it was called an Arab palace. It's right next to the majestic Palma cathedral, a breathtaking example of gothic architecture.

King Carlos holds lots of swank parties there. Then he goes sailing along the 450km of coast in his yacht, the Fortuna. It is said that he is always on the lookout for a hidden beach with a good restaurant.

One such eatery is in Port de Valldemossa, a tiny fishing village that helps feed the historic town. It is at the end of a sealed road that turns back on itself as it snakes down towards sea level, hundreds of sheer-cliff metres and 6km below Valldemossa itself.

The Port de Valldemossa road, like all sealed roads in Mallorca, contains crushed granite. On a dewy morning, on a road still waiting to see the sun, the granite can be as slippery as glass.

But the latest Mercedes-Benz SLK swept over the surface to the port below, where a handful of people were fishing and restaurant staff were laying tables.

The sign said it was a simple bar and restaurant. But it was more than that. Such hideaway eateries often are.

There is a restaurant off the beaten track in Geneva called Cafe de Paris. It shares its name with millions of others. But the Geneva menu hasn't changed in 70-odd years. It hasn't had to.

The Port de Valldemossa menu doesn't change much either, apparently. Fresh seafood, day after day. Michael Douglas eats there when he's at his "Costa Nord" culture centre back up the road.

The steep, winding 5km drive (nothing in New Zealand resembles it) back to the main road was a good test for the supercharged SLK's 2-litre engine and new six-speed manual gearbox.

The four-cylinder unit produces 120kW (163bhp) at 5300rpm and 240Nm of torque between 2500-4800rpm, enough oomph to negotiate the tightest of turns in second gear. The folding-metal vario roof was tucked in the car's boot and warm air flowed from the Airscarf neck-level heating system in the head restraint. In thin cold air hundreds of metres above sea level, it was like sitting in a warm bath.

The second-generation SLK will go on sale in New Zealand this year. Two will be available then: the supercharged four-cylinder 200 Kompressor and the V6-engined 350. The all-new 3.5-litre six-cylinder unit produces 200kW (272bhp) and 350Nm between 2400-5000rpm.

A third model, the SLK 55 AMG, powered by a 5.5-litre V8 engine producing 265 kW (360bhp) and 510Nm, will be here next year.

The 200K and 350 are fitted as standard with a slick six-speed manual gearbox. A five-speed automatic transmission is available as an option for the four-cylinder engine, and customers can order the new V6 model with the 7-speed automatic transmission.

The chassis for the new SLK has a sporty set-up and differs from the outgoing model with its three-link front suspension, rack-and-pinion steering and an even more effective braking system.

It differs in its looks, too, offering hints of the Formula One-inspired SLR. With the top down and from a distance, it could indeed be a little brother to the $1 million supercar.

The 200K is expected to be priced around $80,000, to compete against the 2.2-litre BMW Z4. The SLK350 will sit somewhere in between the $103,000 3-litre Z4 and the $146,000 3.2-litre Porsche Boxster.

Mercedes-Benz says it hasn't settled prices yet. It has already taken 12 orders for the SLK and says the prices will be "ultra-competitive".