2005 Mercedes-Benz SLK350

"Airscarf" sounds like a nice gift for a wife or girlfriend. It's also what Mercedes-Benz calls a new option that blasts warm air from a vent at the base of the headrests at any of three speeds onto the necks of the driver and passenger--all offered in the second-generation SLK-Class. The goal is top-down comfort in sub-60-degree Fahrenheit weather.

Make that 15.5-degrees Celsius.

The Airscarf isn't coming to the land of Fahrenheit under that name, however, because its makers aspire to find more male buyers (versus the largely female buyership that favored the 1998-2004 model). You can buy the option for your SLK350 this fall, but only by its butch name, Active Heated Headrest, which cries out for a typically Benz abbreviation, AHH. "Like my new Merc? It has ESP, ABS, EBD, and AHH."

Alphabet soup aside, the new SLK does come off as less of a chick car than its predecessor. Mercedes can't overcome this issue because SLK always plays New Millennium 190SL to the brawny SL500. While the SLK attempts to mock the flavor of a McLaren-Mercedes F1 car, the sides of the body look pleasantly Reubenesque. It's not the kind of car David Coulthard would date. Still, the McLaren-Mercedes F1 pilot would miss out on a body that handles itself well in the curves, thank you. The SLK has a stout new chassis and high-strength steel alloy in 42 percent of the body's structure.

Mercedes claims 46-percent-better torsional strength with the top down and 19-percent-more bending strength. This seems plausible--we felt no cowl shake, top up or down.