Mercedes Benz has released official photographs of their new baby convertible, the SLK ahead of its official launch at Mercedes' 125th anniversary celebrations in Stuttgart later this month and ahead of its preview at the upcoming Geneva motor Show. Yup, Mercedes Benz is already 125 years old and the SLK, a traditional two seater roadster is still rear wheel drive, still sports its metal folding roof and like all newly launched Mercedes Benzes, promises a steady improvement of its handling over the older version.

It also looks more like a baby Mercedes SL, as it has more of the SL's styling cues as well as the new nose first seen in the newly launched CLS. It looks suitably aggressive, much more than the previous SLK, which in its base SLK200 spec looked more suitable for a hairdresser than anyone else.

The new SLK will also offer a diesel engine, the first in the SLK line-up. It sports a 2.1liter twin turbocharged 4 cylinder engine that makes 204bhp. And while torque figures aren't available as yet, I believe a twin turbocharged modern diesel engine should produce over 350 plus Nm of torque on a bad day.

The usual turbocharged entry level 1.8liter is still around and will come in the 184bhp and the 204bhp forms for the SLK200 and the SLK250 respectively. Aside from the 7 speed G-tronic gearbox, the SLK200 will have a 6speed manual option. It will do 100km/h from a standstill in about 7seconds flat.

The top engine for the launch line-up would be the 3.5liter V6 in the SLK350. It is designed to produce 306bhp and gets to 100km/h in 5.6seconds as well as giving a combined fuel consumption figure of 39.8mpg, pretty good for a high capacity engine (in a small car). It also gets the stop-start engine feature to achieve the afore-mentioned fuel consumption figure.

What's new for the SLK is that the folding hard top can be had with a choice of the standard aluminium top with either fixed tint glass or an electro-magnetic variable tint glass that reacts to the level of sunlight.

Aside from the above, expect an AMG tuned version later in the year. It will use a newly designed normally aspirated version of AMG