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According to Afzal Kahn, founder of Kahn Design/Project Kahn, 'the road is my catwalk'. According to yours truly, this chap takes any car, in this case a Mercedes Benz SLK 200 and rearranges it to his whims and fancies. But customers lap it up as he does the 'bling' and 'in-your-face' concept quite well. The latest release from the UK based tuning house is the R172 Mercedes Benz SLK200 BlueEfficiency Brabus powered AMG Sport Pack. That folks is the official name for the car. Long isn't it? This latest release from Kahn Design consists of a R172 Mercedes SLK200 BlueEfficiency with the full AMG sport pack - including front and rear bumpers, side skirts, Kahn exhaust, lowered suspension, matt black and carbon finished grille, carbon front splitters, red calipers, matt black side vents, remote control roof, roll bars in brushed aluminum. While the body parts are AMG, Kahn has added his own matte black touches to it, making it look a tad bit different. MattE black 20" RS600 Kahn alloy wheels complete the exterior. Don't actually bother asking about interior mods, its a fully customizable SLK200. Whatever type of interior trim that floats your boat could be installed as the choice is purely up to the customer. High end tuners usually have this ultimate option choice actually. If you want the seats the same shade as the colour of your girlfriend's apartment's curtains and the dashboard in the same colour as her derriere, it could actually be possible. With the looks and styling done, Kahn Design then enlists Mercedes tuner Brabus who then tunes the supercharged (surprisingly not turbocharged) four-cylinder 1.8-litre Mercedes Benz engine to make about 30bhp more than stock or about 210bhp. If one were to connect an optional Brabus piggy-back ECU, the car will make another 26bhp. The power made will be transmitted to the rear wheels via Mercedes' 7G-tronic automatic transmission. One should also note that the engine mods are indeed Mercedes Benz approved. This particular model pictured is priced at

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