Damien Reid gets the first Middle East drive of the star of the recent Dubai Motor Show – the gullwinged Mercedes SLS AMG. If you think it’s a winner on looks alone, just wait until you drive it
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Mercedes SLS AMG | First Regional Drive
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hen you’re a kid there are cars that you dream about seeing in the metal, let alone drive. The old Mercedes 300SL Gullwing was one and it’s been a poster car in my head all my life. I once had the chance to ride as a passenger in one with Stirling Moss in my late teens and it remains a poignant highlight in my
T
he 100kmh left-hander looked innocuous enough, but for me it summed up what makes Jaguar’s new XKR-S so special. We came to it while driving in midWales – not exactly flat out, but with commitment – intent on motoring career. No other manufacturer giving the fastest Jaguar since the XJ220 has ever built a production car with agullwing proper examination the fine roads doors and foron five decades it near Bala. seemed as if the iconic 1950s Merc would The bitumen ribbon twisted and remain an enigma in therose, motoring world. fellOf almost it speared courserhythmically the 300SL isas not just about through wide open spaces, occasionally the upward opening doors, it was a constrained on the left by barbed-wire mechanical marvel, a race and rally success story, a collector’s dream and ◊
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‘ Despite its long nose, short cabin and tiny boot profile, the SLS drives and feels like a mid-engined car’
Styling that’s not dominated by a wind tunnel. Nice!
∆ from all reports an absolute bag of fun to drive. Fifty-five years after its launch, I’m sitting in the pitlane of the world’s most modern, state-of-the-art race track; Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi that shouts 2010 technology everywhere from its solar-powered VVIP tower to the giant LED chequered flag and overhead gantry on the front straight. A three-pointed star stares back at me from the leather clad steering wheel boss
and inside it’s all the usual signature AMG Mercedes highlights on everything from the indicator stalk to the window switches and door handles with just one anomaly – those window buttons and door handle were perched above my head. A modern Gullwing! This is the first car built from the ground up by the performance partner of Mercedes-Benz, AMG, and is the successor to the McLaren Mercedes SLR, which has proven to be a Middle Eastern favourite among exotic connoisseurs. It was perhaps no surprise then that the first images of the SLS Gullwing and the first pics of the McLaren MP 4-12C – McLaren’s answer to the same car now that the two companies have gone their separate ways – were released on the same day. Two very different solutions to the same successor and while McLaren has gone back to its roots of a mid-engined layout à la its F1 roadcar from the early ‘90s, the SLS remains a front-engined beast using the sweet 6.2-litre V8 from the current top-line AMG models. It’s clear that with a fresh sheet of paper and not being based on any prior Mercedes model, AMG has come up with a very different package that feels like no Mercedes I have driven.
Yas Marina Circuit welcomed us the day after torrential rain hit the UAE and the prospect of negotiating a track that had previously not seen rain was slightly daunting given the rarity of the SLS. Given that, I opted to grab a few sighting laps driving something marginally more sedate – the new generation E63 AMG. It quickly reminded me of the performance driving school Autocar Middle East attended at the Spa Francorchamps circuit earlier in the year (Autocar ME, August 2009) and the lessons learnt there on how to pedal an AMG quickly round a track. Five or so laps and it was like home with a slightly heavy nose on turn in, strong brakes, the tiniest of waggles from the tail and solid, linear performance on exit. I thought there was a reasonable difference between the various topend AMG models from the C63 through to the SL65 on track until I stepped into the SLS. Straight up, it felt so much tighter and agile. Steering was more precise and woe betides anyone who thinks they can simply stand it on its nose and flick it into a corner like the rest of the AMG range. Unlike the others, its engine is now mounted behind the front axle and with
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Mercedes SLS AMG | First Regional Drive
The tail hides a neat boot-lip spoiler which raises at speed
All wings but no flying . The gullwings take a well-deserved break during an intense day-long session on track
factfile Vitals
dry sump lubrication also sits marginally lower, so despite its long nose, short cabin, tiny boot profile, it drives and feels like a mid-engined car. Steering is light and accurate and again unlike the other AMG V8s, because of its neat 48/52 front-to-rear weight distribution, steering is neutral with no understeer on turn in. Point it at an apex and it will meet it bang on, then power on exiting and its tail will wriggle and writhe as far as its ESP traction programs will permit as it struggles to get traction on a damp and soggy track. With 563bhp at 6800rpm and 649Nm of torque at 4750rpm, granted its figures don’t match those of the old supercharged SLR, which pumped out 641bhp and 820Nm, but it feels a million times tighter which allows for more competent cornering maneuvers and is also significantly lighter at 1680kg compared to the old car’s 1724kg bulk. A track designed for Formula One usually consists of long straights, chicanes and the occasional hairpin and this Hermann Tilke layout at Yas is no different meaning the SLS’s brakes got a good workout twice per lap, once at the end of the super long back straight changing down from sixth to second gear for the hairpin and again after the start-finish straight. Through turns two and three where the pitlane joins the circuit is a fast s-type bend which unweights the car, while at the same time you should be on the gas aiming for the bus stop chicane under the grandstand. Normally a frontengined car would get understeer through here while a mid-engined car could perhaps feels nervous, but the SLS felt planted, understeering slightly, but always sure-footed as you gassed it over the brow towards the downhill left and right chicane before the left-hand hairpin under the main grandstand. While the engine is a derivative of the 6.2-litre unit used in the four-door
mERCEdES-BENz SLS Amg
Engine: Power: Torque: Transmission: Length: Width: Height: Wheelbase: Kerb weight: 0-100km/h: Top Speed: On sale: Price:
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AMG sedans, it’s been altered significantly enough to give it a feeling of its own. A new magnesium intake manifold with electronically controlled throttle flaps, bucket tappets, lightweight forged pistons, twin exhaust headers and dry sump all work to reduce the weight of the unit, lower its centre of gravity and with the lightweight pistons, give it a higher rpm without impacting on torque thanks to its still meaty crankshaft. Helping keep it agile is its weight distribution, which has been aided by having its seven-speed transmission mounted down the back as a transaxle
ABOVE Chasing down the SLS lead car proved difficult but fun in the E63 Amgs BELOW Journalists from Europe, the US and Asia were on hand for this international reveal
and connected to the engine via an aluminium torque tube housing a carbon fibre drive shaft. This is one of the big talking points on the SLS and a long overdue addition to the AMG family – a dual clutch transmission instead of the auto from previous models. Finally AMG has something to challenge the BMW M cars in the cogswapping department and it’s a gem as it’s both rapid and smooth even in sport mode. There are four modes, although being a track session we kept it in sport where it won’t shift unless you use the wheel-mounted paddles. It all adds up to an amazingly good all-round road and track sports car with a claimed 0-100km/h time of 3.8 seconds, 0-200km/h in under 10 seconds and a top speed of 315km/h. The SLS should give the likes of the Ferrari 599 and V12 Aston Vantage something to worry about. So that’s the successor to the McLaren Mercedes SLR and while the boys at McLaren are building an altogether different concept with the MC4-12, it had better be good as I’m guessing that getting SLR owners to look at anything other than an SLS is going to be a near impossible task, but I can’t wait to see their reply. L January 2010 WWW.AUTOCARmAg.COm 67
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