Mercedes Benz SLS AMG: First Drives Thread...

[jsciales]

Originally Posted by Beemer B773ER

Just a quick question (coz I haven't been following the SLS much). With the doors opened, if one reaches speed of ..say 150mph or more, is there a possibility of creating any vertical lift, and maybe becoming a true Batmobile ?

Sorry couldn't resist, seeing those doors opened liked that it makes me wonder about the aerodynamics at high speeds.

Very interesting, but I think the doors would be too small and the weight would be too much to literally give wings to the car.

[coolraoul]

Hinges won't resist long at high speed, doors will fall off long before creating any kind of lift effect!

Stunning car, really stunning. Looks absolutely perfect. Thar one in flat brown is to die for!

[Wunderkind]

Originally Posted by Merc1

LOL.......GK is like seven feet tall, hence the ill-fit of the cockpit for him.

M

Yes, Kacher is around 6,6" or 6,7". He doesn't fit comfortably into most cars.

Perhaps a thinly-padded race style bucket seat will liberate more headroom for the tall.

[ALI]

I see the SLS AMG is being heavilly compared to the SLR Mclaren, does anyone have an idea of how much impact this car will have on the SLR's rep?? Seems like mercedes doesnt care much for whats being replaced ...

I still love the SLR for what it is, but this car is just amazing, very good reviews, good job by MB and AMG ...

[Merc1]

I have the feeling that Mercedes and Mclaren both would like to forget about the SLR. The local dealer here had the same car on the floor for over 9 months! So I doubt it will be missed by the company or the dealers. The SLS on the other hand I expect to sell out for at least the first 2-3 years.

I too like the SLR, particularly the roadster, specifically the 722S version, but the car was overpriced and cheaper cars just showed it up too badly on the track. Too much infighting and wrangling between Mclaren and Mercedes compromised the car too much.

M

[Pagani]

It is doubtless that the SLR has had its role in teaching Mercedes and AMG a few things otherwise they would not have known. Perhaps not as much 'what to do,' but rather 'what not to...'

[jsciales]

MAZDA RACEWAY, LAGUNA SECA, Monterey, California: The moment the door arcs skyward, it all makes so much sense. The classic long-nose proportions, those silver strakes along the base of the windshield and behind the front wheels. Of course, there's a familiar three-pointed star on the nose.
But when it starts up with a growl, the world tilts on its axis. The look is pure is Aufrecht and Melcher, but that sound...cherry bomb? Flowmaster?

Then the car pulls away, with AMG test pilot and five-time German Touring Car champion Bernd Schneider behind the wheel, and your ears begin to tell even grander lies to your brain.
Schneider pins the throttle and the sounds waves -- nein, shockwaves -- that emanate from the twin pipes immediately end all V-8 musclecar imagery. The throaty, idle wuffle rips into a fast running roar over the rise of turn one -- the revs rising impossibly high for such a large-displacement engine. When he lifts in the braking zone of turn two, a millisecond of silence is immediately shattered by pops and crackles of unburned fuel sizzling in the exhaust system. He cracks off one, two rev-matched downshifts, hits the apex, and then is gone -- taking the car, that sound, and everything you thought you knew about Mercedes-Benz along with it.
It's all very confusing, and only gets worse when he pits a few laps later and it's your turn to run.

It's a lot to take in, this bellowing, bewinged beast -- all snout and tidily truncated tail. They say the SLS' 6.2-liter, 563 horsepower V-8 engine sits behind the midline of the front wheels, but when you stare at all that real estate up front, it just seems ludicrous. There's so much acreage at the prow, what goes there? Another engine? (Actually, the dry-sump oiling system).


She's strangely attractive though, far better looking in person than in photographs. The eyes are wide set, pushed to the corners and separated by a broad mouth, split horizontally by a wing and ring. Back, way back, is the tiny cockpit, inset about a hand's width from the front fenders -- the widest point of the car. A subtle character line runs the length of the car, from the headlights back along the fender, skimming the slender stalks of the side mirrors, before terminating at that small, sumptuously sculpted booty. But enough gawking, how do you get in?

A touch of the key fob ejects a thin handle from the SLS' smooth sides -- a full foot below where you'd normally grab. Lift up, step in, and grasp the interior door handle to close the door as you sit down. It's all very quick and graceful. Sure, there's a sill, but it's low and there's not much of a threshold, so getting seated requires far less contorting than with the original 300SL -- though the whole process is just as much of a show-stopper.
It's roomier inside than expected. You sit low and twin bulges in the roof mean headroom is good even if you're tall. Just don't lean your noggin inboard toward where the door hinges reside.
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From here, the view is enthralling and intimidating. The horizon is yours, literally, as the hood dominates the lower third of your field of view. With the hood's center bulge on one side and a gentle upward fender flare on the other, you have a shallow channel in which to spy the road immediately ahead. Placing the right headlight is more difficult, as you have to look over the bulge across an expanse of metal that just seems to fall away. Provided the pop-up spoiler is down, visibility out back is good, though it's also difficult to judge where it ends. As you discover, it's about yard shorter than expected.
A wide center console separates you from the passenger. All the important controls are here, from the push-button starter to the new T-shaped gear selector, that, like the A/C vents and overall layout of the cabin, is supposed to remind you of jets and fighter pilots. Too bad it's about 50 percent smaller than the thrust control lever found in Maverick's F-14. But enough navel gazing -- they're waving you onto the track.


Push that starter and there it is again, that roar, that coarse, throaty idle. These are not run-of-the-mill Benz noises, not the sound of relentless German efficiency. But then, what did you expect? Perhaps the note of the world's first direct-injection, 3.0-liter inline-six? This ain't 1952. No, these are modern AMG, DTM, *** noises.


Foot on brake, T-selector back to drive, transmission selector to Sport Plus, and you're off. Down into turn two and already you know this is some of the best steering feel of a Mercedes-Benz production car to date, possibly the best of any AMG. It's direct, but natural feeling and moderately weighted -- but not artificially so. What's more, it pairs deliciously with the suspension tuning.
A rigid aluminum space frame and forged control arm suspension -- front and rear -- give the SLS an almost formula-car feel. You can feel the wheels move up and down independent of each other and you're aware of the fantastically stiff chassis.


Front grip is tremendous; right at turn three, again at turn four -- the nose just darts to eat up the apexes. The rear ain't bad either, on the uphill left of turn five, 20-inch-tall, 395/30-profile Continentals serve up wave after wave of torque as the SLS blips through the gears.
Speeds rise with the increasing elevation, and it sounds just glorious; redline is 7200 rpm for this monstrous engine. You're flat out now toward the infamous turn six, hugging the curbing before going hard on the ceramics discs at the second braking cone and dipping low toward rumble strips and hammering up and out at the exit.


It is here that things begin to get dicey. On this uphill section, quickly through the rise at turn seven, the SLS' long and wide nose erodes confidence. You can't see much over it, which is spooky when you're rushing headlong into Laguna's famous corkscrew.
Hard on the brakes again before turning into this famously blind, fall-away left-right combination. Are you in the right place? Looking starboard for the candy-cane stripes, you see only the SLS' hood. You make it through but your knuckles are whiter for it.


Through nine, 10, she goes back to being a legitimate track star. With only about 3500 pounds to carry, and 53 percent of that over the rear wheels, this aluminum-body beauty is easy to chuck and squirt in and out of corners. Hard again on the brakes for turn 11, Laguna's slowest corner, and when you power out, the tail momentarily steps sideways, before the ESP reins it in. Throttle down, and you're thundering down the straight, speedo tickling over 120 mph.


Round and round you go, fiddling with the paddles and transmission modes (C, S, S+, M) to find the best combination for the new seven-speed AMG Speedshift dual-clutch gearbox. After a couple of laps, it's clear this is not the best dual clutch around. Full-throttle upshifts have a satisfying thunk, and rev-matched downshifts send ear hairs quivering, but neither feel as quick as the gear indicator lights claim.


Confidence ebbs and flows. Drive below your limits and she's utterly superb -- willing, thrilling, responsive to every command. At the ragged edge, some of the clarity goes away. She rewards clean, by-the-book driving. Mix it up a bit, and dash lights flash, throttle gets cut, breaking your concentration. Might the SLS be a better road car than race car?


You take an 80-mile loop down to Big Sur to find out. On real roads, all that impresses is magnified, while all that confounds is diminished. The lovely steering is even better on the sweeping seaside curves of Highway 1. The independently articulating suspension adores well-cambered roads and even sends the SLS sailing effortlessly across less than perfect pavement. There's no more fretting about the view either: Only the narrowest and tightest of canyon roads present a problem.

How about that gearbox? Like most modern sports cars that walk the line between high performance and strict emissions regulations, the SLS attempts to get you in the highest gear possible as soon as it can. Loaf around and you can sometimes find yourself in seventh gear at maybe 50 mph. Floor it and the digital gear display drops to third gear in a split second, though the actual gear change and resultant manic surge is delayed a beat later. It's fast enough, but without the impressive immediacy of the dual-clutch transmissions from Porsche, BMW, or Nissan.
The tradeoff is that the SLS is smoother on the street. It is worlds better than the slow-speed herky-jerkiness of BMW's DCT box. Speedshift is far silkier and much less noisy than the GT-R's as well. The closest approximation is Porsche's PDK, but that one feels arguably as smooth at slow speeds and is much quicker when you're really on it. AMG has clearly biased the SLS' dual clutch for everyday driving, which means that while the shifting is not brutally fast, it's smooth enough that you just might forget about the cars track day intentions.


So, no surprise that the SLS AMG makes a better street car. After all, that was the point. AMG and Mercedes-Benz pursued a new level of performance with their latest and greatest, and have largely succeeded. It goes down the track better than just about any three-pointed star that's come before it, yet it's easy and rewarding to drive on the way home.
Riotous exhaust note aside, it all makes so much sense.


Motor Trend.com

[Centurion]

Originally Posted by ALI

I see the SLS AMG is being heavilly compared to the SLR Mclaren, does anyone have an idea of how much impact this car will have on the SLR's rep?? Seems like mercedes doesnt care much for whats being replaced ...

I still love the SLR for what it is, but this car is just amazing, very good reviews, good job by MB and AMG ...

The cars are quite unrelated. While the SLS will be a common sight in big metropolitan cities, the SLR is a much more exclusive and exquisite car. The SLS's advantage in track won't bother anyone as the SLR is a 6 year old car, nothing to be shocked over. As a matter of fact the new Ferrari 458 is said to have an advantage over the Enzo on a track. It's not just performance that sell these cars, it's the exclusivity and the desire to own a research project on wheels.


Good too see that SLS is getting good review and I look forward to reading full length tests.

[ree]

Did someone shorten the straightaway between Turn 11 and the start-finish line here at Laguna Seca? The track also seems strangely narrower since our last visit, and the kink that is Turn 1 seems more like, well, an actual turn as we hurtle toward it in this gleaming silver 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.

That's what a 563-horsepower 6.2-liter AMG V8 engine can do to perception when it's set deep within the all-aluminum chassis of a purpose-built ultra-performance sports car such as this.

But blunt-force V8 engines with a calm in-town demeanor and an intoxicating exhaust note are hardly news where AMG is concerned — the company from Affalterbach has been impressing us with its approach to V8 high performance for some time.

No, the news here is the car itself. The 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG is AMG's first complete car, designed and developed entirely in-house with no donor Benz chassis to start from. That the SLS AMG is destined to be a flagship car for Mercedes-Benz (as well as the re-embodiment of the beloved 300SL Gullwing) is a testament to the engineering resources of what once was just a small, independent tuning company and now is the official high-performance division of Mercedes-Benz.

Not a Warmed-Over SLR McLaren
Comparisons to the SLR McLaren are unavoidable, as both it and the SLS AMG are front-midengine coupes with impossibly long hoods and oddly hinged doors. The SLR paradoxically paired an extremely expensive carbon-fiber chassis with a traditional five-speed automatic transmission, whereas the SLS employs a less costly (but still exotic) aluminum unibody and a rear-mounted seven-speed automated manual transaxle.

But AMG wasn't yet ready to deliver on the entire automotive package back when the SLR was conceived, so its involvement with that project was more or less limited to providing the supercharged 5.5-liter V8 engine. So AMG got to work by steadily expanding its contribution to mass-produced Mercedes-Benz road cars while the McLaren F1 boys were busy playing with their beloved carbon-fiber.

AMG's effort eventually led to thoughtful and effective upgrades to the front suspension and brakes of the 2008 C63 AMG, a car that showed how far AMG can take a production car with a bolt-on tuning approach. From there AMG stretched a bit further to make the 2009 SL65 AMG Black Series, in which it extensively modified the body structure of an SL roadster, turning it into a rigid platform for a much more manic coupe.

All of this was part of a build-up of staff and experience that would allow AMG to finally design an entire car.

Body and Soul
In deference to the 300SL, which won the 1952 24 Hours of Le Mans and was built as a production car from 1955-'63, the aluminum body shell of the SLS was designed with gullwing doors from the start. And since gullwing doors disallow the use of fixed roof rails above the side windows, the remaining slender central roof section cannot be relied on to provide much body rigidity. Instead the side sills of the SLS utilize a massive rectangular cross-section to provide the necessary chassis rigidity.

A bare SLS aluminum body shell weighs just 532 pounds, and the finished car tips the scales at just 3,573 pounds — only 277 pounds less than the carbon-fiber SLR McLaren, a car which is longer by only 0.7 inch. What's more, at 76.3 inches the SLS is actually 1.2 inches wider than an SLR.

Physical comparisons to the SL63 AMG roadster are more impressive. The SLS AMG is 4.1 inches longer, 4.8 inches wider...and more than 700 pounds lighter than the roadster we drove on the Nürburgring last year.

Revised 6.2-liter V8
Though the SLR used a supercharged 5.5-liter AMG V8, the normally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 in the SLS shares one vital modification. That is, the wet-sump oil pan has been replaced with a dry-sump scavenging system and a remote oil tank. This allows the engine to sit far lower and farther back in the chassis.

The SLS iteration of what AMG continues to call a 6.3-liter V8 (despite its actual 6,208cc displacement, an homage to the 6.3-liter Mercedes with which AMG earned its reputation in racing) has been pumped up to 563 hp through revisions to the valvetrain and the intake and exhaust systems.

We can't even see much of the most visible change, which is a new magnesium intake manifold with eight interlaced, individually tuned velocity stacks, each 11.4 inches in length and 2 inches across. Bucket-type tappets allow a more aggressive cam profile, and large-diameter tubular exhaust headers guide the spent gases out through tuned-length runners that minimize back-pressure.

On the track, it adds up to a healthy shove as we exit Turn 11 at Laguna, hard on the gas and flicking through the gears in rapid succession.

All-New Transaxle
Those gears actually reside between the rear wheels in a new seven-speed transaxle developed in-house specifically for the SLS. It's an automated manual with dual wet clutches, one each for the odd- and even-numbered gears. A multiple limited-slip differential resides in the same housing, slightly forward of the gear clusters.

A rigid aluminum torque tube connects the transaxle to the engine. This reduces overall driveline slack immensely, as the engine and rear end aren't free to twist and buck in their mounts relative to one another. Hidden inside the torque tube is a lightweight carbon-fiber driveshaft that rotates at engine speed.

Shift paddles on the steering wheel control it all in Manual mode, though the familiar console-mounted lever and a rotary dial with three additional automatic modes (Comfort, Sport and Sport Plus) make it easy to control at whatever pace you require. On the track, we find that Sport Plus nicely initiates rapid up- and downshifts in accordance with whichever pedal we're standing on at the moment.

Manual-mode shifting is aided by a set of F1-style shift indicator lights. But they seem a bit too far away from the driver's line of sight on the track and we find ourselves in the rev limiter more than once. AMG engineers are also quick to point out that final programming for the transmission is yet to be finalized in these last months before production.

Of course a rear-mounted transaxle provides another obvious benefit in that it shifts weight distribution rearward. And so the front-midengine layout (the engine is behind the line of the front axle) of the SLS AMG places just 47 percent of its weight on the front tires, with the remaining 53 percent out back to put the power to the pavement.

Balance
All of this leads to a chassis that feels reassuringly responsive, rigid and well balanced. The SLS AMG responds precisely to steering inputs and we have no trouble placing the car just where we want on the track. Understeer and oversteer seem well tamed and by the 19-inch front and 20-inch rear Continental tires.

There's only one thing that can upset this rapidly moving apple cart, and that's an overly enthusiastic right foot. It's quite easy to forget about the 563 hp on tap and the lightweight chassis when everything is rushing past so effortlessly. It's a bit easy to get into the throttle too hard and break the rear tires loose and get into oversteer, even with the stability control in the intermediate Sport mode.

None of this is a concern on the road, where you're likely to be further from the limit with the stability control system at full watchfulness. Here the ride of the standard suspension, which uses nonadjustable monotube dampers, feels reassuringly firm and well damped.

The optional AMG performance suspension features springs that are some 15 percent firmer, and the dampers have been retuned to suit, but the tires and stabilizer bars remain unchanged. As we've said of the C63 and E63, don't rush toward this option if your municipality doesn't fully fund its road maintenance crew.

Life With Gullwings
There's something about gullwing doors that makes you want to open and close them, or maybe just leave them open and stand back a few paces.

These certainly provide much better access than any Lambo-style scissor doors we've ever tested, and they're easier to live with in narrow parking stalls than the funky guillotine-style doors found on the Ford GT.

From the driver seat it's an easy reach for this tall test driver to the grab handle, and shorter drivers can grab hold before they're fully seated and pull it down as they slide in or use the hanging loop that AMG can provide. Unless you're an NBA star, there's no need to duck as you close these doors, either. The inner panels are scalloped to provide clearance.

But there can be no map pockets, so interior storage is at a premium. The stubby rear deck lid conceals just 6.2 cubic feet of storage, just enough for weekend luggage for two. Legroom isn't terribly generous, either. Our 6-foot-2-inch frame could have used another inch of seat travel for true long-distance comfort.

The rest of the car is finished in familiar Mercedes AMG fashion. The level of trim is outstanding, as is the Bang and Olufsen sound system.

An Impressive Achievement
All in all, the 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG represents an impressive achievement. It's a car that delivers just what you'd expect from a reborn gullwing Mercedes developed by the modern-day AMG.

We won't have long to wait to see production examples, either, as the 2011 SLS AMG will hit these shores late in April 2010. Orders are being taken now, but the U.S. price is still to be determined. European prices start at €177,310, but this includes a 19 percent value-added tax. We're estimating a price in the neighborhood of $235,000, notwithstanding the gas-guzzler tax we'll doubtless pay here.

Whatever the price turns out to be, it's about $200,000 less than the McLaren-built carbon-fiber SLR. And from where we sit, the SLS AMG is the far better car.

Which leaves us with just one question for the guys at AMG: Where do you go from here?

2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG First Drive

[HighestOfHigh]

Originally Posted by ree

Which leaves us with just one question for the guys at AMG: Where do you go from here?

First, and SLC followed by a 700hp black series model. After that Maybe an SLT AMG (Bugatti fighter) with 1100hp ().