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"         4th \u2014 Mercedes-Benz SL500 542.2 points                   Its three-pointed star utterly defines the SL500. There&amp;#039;s no denying a Mercedes-Benz heritage: rich-looking, classic, no-nonsense. More than any other car in the test, the SL500 has its elements integrated into a whole. It&amp;#039;s a car that feels like it has been artfully carved from a solid block.                                                       In our notes on this trip, nearly everybody described M-B&amp;#039;s 2-seater, introduced in 2002, as &amp;quot;timeless&amp;quot; in its styling. From any angle, it&amp;#039;s a rich-looking car, neither too cluttered nor devoid of eye-catching detail. It has classic SL styling cues going all the way back to the &amp;#039;50s, but integrated without a blatant retro feel; handsome in the most modern sense. New, yet...timeless. And the careful detail you see on the surface goes all the way through the car.   To include the engine, a 5.0-liter sohc 24-valve V-8 that does a pretty good job of hauling this 4130-lb. car smartly up to speed. It&amp;#039;s satisfyingly torquey at the low end and feels strong through the entire rev range, moving onto the highway with a classic, deep V-8 burble combined with a silky lack of vibration. One of those engines that simply gets the job done, any time you ask. In performance, both in the quarter mile and 0-60 times, it tied our Jaguar XK8 for fourth spot, launching itself to 60 mph in 6.1 sec. and through the quarter mile in 14.5 sec.   The engine is mated to a 5-speed automatic transmission that changes gears smoothly, but with just enough impact that you feel something has happened, unlike the Lexus&amp;#039; more invisible shifting. In manual mode, the slap-shift lever allows you to upshift and downshift quickly without ever looking away from the road.   If the engine and transmission are slick in operation, the brakes are another matter. This is the first Mercedes to use electro-hydraulic braking, a system with 8-piston front calipers, modulated by fast-acting valves that tell each corner of the car how much braking it needs, depending on road surface and cornering conditions. The brakes are powerful and linear at road speed, but become annoyingly grabby and hard to modulate at low, traffic-crawling speeds, so as you creep up to stoplights you feel, as someone remarked, like a clumsy kid taking his driver&amp;#039;s test. You gradually learn to vary your foot pressure on the pedal to brake smoothly, but why should you have to? None of our other cars do this, and two of them stop faster than the Mercedes. Another case of what our Engineering Editor, Mr. Simanaitis, calls &amp;quot;why-tech.&amp;quot;   On the bright side, Mercedes says the system does have some safety advantages. It senses a quick lift of the gas pedal and &amp;quot;arms&amp;quot; the calipers by applying just enough pressure to bring the pads firmly up to the rotors, reducing braking distances by a claimed 3 percent.   Handling of the SL is hard to fault. Ride is superb, and the Mercedes blazes down a winding road with effortless ease, almost no body roll and a sensation that four big fat tires are out there somewhere, gripping the road tenaciously on your behalf. Steering is quick, precise and creamy-smooth in its assist, but without as much road feedback as you get with the Porsche or Maserati.   A few of our younger staffers (and at least one who remains masochistic and immature) thought the SL was almost too easy to drive fast, taking away some of the sense of fun and driving involvement. But, however you read it, the Mercedes&amp;#039; chassis is a piece of work, and you&amp;#039;d have to be quite determined to put this car off the road.   The Mercedes&amp;#039; top is the show-stopper of the group, and of all the retractable hardtops, the Benz does the best job with storage space in both top-up and top-down modes. At the rear, there&amp;#039;s a tilt-forward button that allows you to lift the folded top slightly to get at suitcases in the trunk.   It&amp;#039;s small but carefully engineered touches like this that define the SL500 and make it perhaps the most refined and complete real-world touring car in our test. It&amp;#039;s a car for people who expect everything to work very well, and all at the same time. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-comparison-tests/reviews/a19040/wind-sun-and-stars-2003-mercedes-benz-sl500/>