German Car Zone

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Rating:


661bhp super-SL is AMG's most powerful model to date


The serious joggers who slog relentlessly between the renovated piers peppered along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay have to be among the most insular people on earth. Outnumbering mere walking mortals three-to-one, their bobbing forms glisten in the morning sun, eyes fixed on some imagined finishing line forever receding, rainbow-like, beyond reach. Their cold gaze only ever deviates from the straight ahead on a short arc downwards to whatever time/speed/heart-rate monitor is strapped to their wrists. These are people who are proving, stride by Nike-enhanced stride, that cars, even the most timid and economical, are nothing more than a necessary evil and never, ever to be gawped at or admired.

So this is tough. For the joggers, I mean. Thanks to the sloth of the early morning traffic and Mercedes’ decision to run the first few miles of its test route for the launch of the SL65 AMG Black Series in the Bay Area of San Francisco, I’m tracking a line of unsmiling pavement pounders in a car that is to self-effacing stealth what an AC/DC gig is to an afternoon recital of chamber music. I’m on their case; a flicker of a glance is all I’m after and, if the shock of the extraordinary is what’s needed, my chances of getting one should be better than in any Ferrari or Lamborghini.

It isn’t as if AMG has held back with this one. Not so much cutting against the grain of the regular SL’s measured and gender-neutral brand of ‘sleek’ as attacking it with a chainsaw, the Black Series takes liberties with exaggeration, proportioning, macho posturing and quasi-DTM racer detailing that verge on, but stay just the right side of, caricature. In short, the SL65 Black has the presence of a flame thrower in a ticker-tape factory. It doesn’t even look much like the car it’s based on. Apart from the grille, lights and doors, the SL bits have been completely subsumed by the mostly carbon Black Series bits, which add girth, attitude, price and exclusivity in unprecedented quantities but, via some clever re-engineering and ditching the folding Vario roof for a fixed one, cleave a handy 250 kilos from the kerb weight, too. The benefit of this, along with a completely re-worked chassis and a one-man hand-built 6-litre twin-turbo V12 generating 661bhp at 5400rpm and a capped torque output of 737lb ft between 2200 and 4200rpm (otherwise it would be a transmission-trashing 900lb ft plus) should become apparent when we reach the legendary Laguna Seca circuit in Monterey for a spot of lunch and lunacy.


Full Review: EVO - Mercedes SL65 Black Series



WOW...stunning. You can exhale now.


M

Sounds just like the SLR.

^True,but we all already knew that.The car is still to heavy to be a true hardcore track weapon but IMO the earth rotating power and out right gorgeous looks makes up for everything else

^^ True. Hopefully the real track-biased machine will be the SLC. With the much lighter V8 and MCT the SLC should be a hoot on the track.

M