German Car Zone

"My face! My face! My face! My faaace! It's burning my face off!"

"Morning, Justin. Is it a bit hot out?" I ask, smugly clicking the Merc's A/C up another chilly notch.

"No, you idiot. It's actually burning my face. My actual face. It's been burned. By this!" I flinch as Justin presses a bulky black camera into my hands, and then yelp at its temperature. It's like it's been pulled fresh-baked from the oven. And there's a red mark swelling up in the lower orbit of Justin's right eye socket. Turns out that after a few minutes of sunbathing, the body of Justin's camera has heated itself to such a degree that it has indeed had a go at flaying his almost-transparent British skin and the rubber eyepiece has become Blu-Tack tacky.

"What's the temperature reading?" asks Justin, prodding manfully at the meat of his cheek and trying to lie his entire body across the pair of air vents on the dash.

"Er, current air temperature is reading between 129 and 130 degrees. Fahrenheit." I add, somewhat unnecessarily. "But according to today's news, the ground temperature on the salt pan to our left should crest 180 degrees. Which means we should be able to roast your whole head by about 4 p.m."

Justin says nothing. Just leans over, pops open my door and shoves me out. And I meet a record-breaking July in Death Valley head on, face first.

The first breath in this type of temperature is like trying to swallow hot cotton wool. It catches in the back of your throat, clings inside your lungs like the air itself wants to stay in the shade. Gasping is not a good idea, simply because you begin to suspect that the air coming out of you is actually slightly cooler than the air going in. And it's dry. Dry as death. Not the sweltering heat of the tropics, where the sweat emerges to melt you away. Here, you sweat purely to try to dissipate heat. You feel the sweat prick open your pores like a cracking dam about to burst.

We should be more prepared. Actually, I'm beginning to suspect that limiting our preparation to buying two large hats and two bottles of water to be somewhat stupid.

"We should have brought bigger hats," says Justin, from inside the car. "And more water. And some grown-ups." I look down and realize that my phone doesn't work. "We're going to die here," I say quietly, and probably somewhat melodramatically, seeing as we've only been here two hours, and there are seven tour buses about 50 feet away.

It's easy to see why car manufacturers hot-weather test here. Temperatures in California/Nevada's Death Valley regularly crest 113 degrees, and if you come in the height of summer, as we have, every breath feels like you're sucking on a superheated bong. If your car is going to suffer a heat-induced failure, then 130 degrees is likely to find it. To push the limits, we've decided to try a little economy test on something a bit special. The Mercedes SL63 AMG — currently the world's most powerful naturally aspirated V8. The test involves driving a 400-mile route around Death Valley without filling the car up with fuel. No problem, you may think, until you realize the car has a 25-gallon fuel tank, and the best you can expect is roughly 20.3 mpg (combined), according to Merc's own figures. That gives us a range of 419.804 miles, not including photography miles, A/C set to freezer burn and driving like your life depends on economy. Which, rather unironically, it does.

The problem is that the big SL is a bitch to drive slowly. The 6.2-liter V8 loves to rev in a very un-Merc-like way. Add to that the new MCT-7 Speedshift semi-auto manual gearbox that shifts both like a paddle-operated manual and a torque-converted auto depending on your mood, and you'll struggle to find reasons to dawdle. On the way here, on some very deserted roads, the 4.6-second 0–62-mph time was within gloriously noisy easy reach, and the 155-mph limiter all too easy to graze. But as Las Vegas recedes, we arrive at a small town called Shoshone, brim the tank and prepare to adventure.


Full Story: Features - TopGear.com - Dead Heat - BBC Top Gear


M

Looking smoking hot in red

Second that…

It is so good to read about how tough a Mercedes is.

Thanks ree I was too lazy to post all of the pics!


M

superb..there is one exact like this at my dealer

Gorgeous!

I hope this review is on the show on Sunday

I just wonna hear it

Well it is Top Gear Australia!! But great sounds…

^

The sounddddd

That wasn't a bad review from the Australian top gear then, i usually don't like that version of TP

First time I went through Death Valley we stopped at Bad Water. It was over 120 degrees, but felt great. I was really comfortable, until I saw a nice looking rock and picked it up for .56 seconds. We then stopped at the visitor center and I saw the sign that said ground temperatures were above 180 degrees.

Air scarf is just so cool