Auto News 5

Toe-to-toe at last
We've been waiting a long time for this meeting. The predecessors to the two cars you see here debuted back in the booming late 1990s, but were as different as Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, or Friends and Seinfeld. The bulldog-faced Z3 oozed machismo, performance, and back-to-basics simplicity. James Bond drove one. The SLK, in contrast, had a steel folding hard top, came in colors like copper and electric green, and had recirculating-ball steering. Your wife wanted one.