No supercharger whine.Īlthough this is basically the same SOHC 24-valve aluminum V-8 used in the SL500, there are significant differences. Made by IHI, the belt-driven supercharger is of the Lysholm type, with a Teflon-coated screw-style impeller delivering boost up to 11.6 psi. There is, for example, the weight of the AMG car's supercharger and its air-to-water intercooler, the latter designed with its own separate supply of fluid. We believe a similar emotion animated the people who divided Marie Antoinette into two unequal portions in 1793, and we furnish this observation as a public service to potential buyers: Caveat emptor.īut we were discussing the SL55's power and its increased mass, and in fact the two are directly related. All too often we'd cruise past some joker only to find him angrily attached to the Benz's rear bumper, somehow offended at being overtaken. This car seems to stir up civilians like few others, and not always in a delighted (read "Lookit that!") way. There's a corollary to the traffic-sorting prowess, incidentally. It dissects traffic like a superbike and exudes a sense of mechanical resentment when a soulless microchip arrests the rush at 156 mph. Crack the throttle, and this posh heavyweight lunges forward like a shark that's been invited to nibble a chunk of Britney Spears. The disparities seem minor on paper, but the real-world distinctions are dramatic. In contrast, the SL500 tested in our April issue hit 60 mph in 5.8 seconds, 100 in 14.5, and covered the quarter in 14.3 seconds at 99 mph. It's the most potent Benz ever offered in North America, according to the manufacturer, and also the quickest factory Benz we've ever tested: 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds, 0 to 100 in 10.9, the quarter-mile in 13 seconds flat at 110 mph. Check the motivational specs: 493 horsepower at 6100 rpm, 516 pound-feet of torque manifesting itself along a wonderfully flat curve from 2650 to 4500 rpm. Make no mistake, this is a formidable automobile, Moby Dick mass notwithstanding. That's SUV territory, but even so, the AMG version is heftier: 4411 pounds. When the readouts on the C/D scales finally settled, the tally for that one stood at a resounding 4172 pounds. The demos came after we ordinary mortals had done a few laps, and with a light rain at the end of the session, this became quite dramatic, indeed.īut as we strapped on a new SL55 to head home, the nagging question persisted: What's up with all this avoirdupois? The standard SL500 we tested last April was certainly no wraith. Moreover, Mercedes had enlisted a platoon of pro road racers to demonstrate those capabilities as dramatically as possible. Given the car's capabilities, it was certainly the right venue-long straights punctuated by hard braking and generally uncomplicated turns. This little tableau, reinforced by other examples of mass exerting its relentless influence, emerged as the overriding impression of an all-too-brief Road America experience, laid on by Mercedes-Benz as the finale of its North American SL55 AMG press launch. Highs: Prodigious thrust, execujet style, execujet comfort. But when the throttle went down at the apex, the car was across the track and onto that alligator curbing before you could say, "Götterdämmerung!" First lap in a new car-and an expensive one at that-lots of power, cold tires, etc. See, getting out there onto the exit curbing was not the intent upon entering the turn. The Neubauer parable flickered in my mind's eye like a prewar movie as I hit the rumble strips on the exit of Turn Five and started up the hill. This story came to mind early in our first lap of Wisconsin's Road America racetrack in the new Mercedes SL55 AMG roadster. A bigger car would have a bigger engine, and thus go faster. The rulemakers set an upper limit, because they saw weight as a dynamic asset. Neubauer's paint trick was designed to get the cars down below the max. In those days, the competition weight regs specified a maximum limit, rather than a minimum. Neubauer's motive had nothing to do with aesthetics. Hence the origin of silver as the German color for racing. 2003 Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG First Drive.
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