Dryce
Hardcore MB Enthusiast
- Joined
- May 17, 2006
- Messages
- 11,525
- Car
- GLE
The UK market for Mercedes-Benz cars is almost totally dominated by automatics, it's not the same in other markets which happily buy the same models with manual transmission - hence the production numbers (which relate to the previous R170 model, btw).
R170 SLK230 was probably close to 90% autiomatic vs manual.
R170 SLK200 was possibly closer to 50% but the population much smaller in the UK. It's possible that those going for the 200 would be more price sensitive so less likely to pay for the automatic.
I suspect the R171 skewed things a bit. It was sold as a sportier model than the R170 so maybe more buyers went for the manual option. MB maybe pushed more manuals through the fleet operators.