Mercedes benz SL

                           MERCEDES BENZ SL

The MERCEDES BENZ SL is a fascinating, enduring and exquisite contradiction of a sports car. This two-seat convertible has a triumphant motorsport history that most sports car makers would consider priceless, and for the past decade or so – thanks to the work of AMG – it has ranked among the fastest and most powerful roadsters in the world.

And yet it’s become a car revered not for performance as much as opulent luxury, immaculate refinement and unparalleled usability. It’s a sporting convertible perfectly designed to appeal to the retired chauffeur in us all.

But Daimler has greater ambitions for this new version. The arrival of the AMG models has reduced the average age of SL owners considerably, but Mercedes wants to lower it further by injecting greater response and dynamism into the SL’s character.     

It has gone to great lengths to do that, by way of weight saving, body strengthening and powertrain overhaul – all of which we’ll cover in the following pages. But have the impeccable manners of the grand old Mercedes convertible survived?

DESIGN

Having familiarised itself with the use of structural aluminium while producing the hand-built SLS,has taken the plunge by making the new SL its first series production car to be built predominantly from the stuff.    The state-of-the-art superstructure contains chill-cast, die-cast, stamped and extruded aluminium parts, as well as some magnesium and hot-formed galvanised steel. The components, joined using six different methods, contribute to a body-in-white weight 25 per cent less than it would be in steel, along with a 20 per cent boost in static torsional stiffness.

Daimler’s determination to make this new SL worthy of the ‘Super Light’ billing has driven its engineers to find weight savings all over the car. Having taken 15kg out of the roof, 11kg out of the seats, 11kg out of the front suspension, 4kg out of the electrics, 4kg out of the stereo, 4kg out of the front brakes and even 250g out of the wheel nuts, they’ve delivered the SL500 at a claimed 1785kg. Our test car, brimmed and fitted with £19,000 worth of options, weighed 1815kg. Impressive, considering that most grand drop-tops comfortably exceed two tonnes. An entry-level Mercedes SL 350, by comparison tips the scales at 1685kg.  

The car’s multi-link chassis is now almost exclusively forged aluminium and features valve-controlled adaptive dampers as standard. Those wanting a more sporting set-up can opt for the stiffer springs, dampers and anti-roll bars, and reduced ride height of the AMG sports package of our test car.   

Mercedes’ Active Body Control suspension is also an option. It’s a self-levelling set-up that replaces the conventional spring struts and stabilisers with active hydraulic struts that continuously adjust in terms of spring length and roll stiffness. Contrary to popular misconception, air spheres are not involved.  

Even after all that, the SL500’s new aluminium V8 is far from overshadowed. At once 22 per cent more fuel-efficient, 12 per cent more powerful and with 32 per cent more torque than the old SL’s normally aspirated 5.5, the new car’s 4.7-litre engine uses twin parallel turbochargers to produce 429bhp and a formidable 516lb ft. It drives the real wheels through Mercedes’ latest 7G-Tronic Plus seven-speed torque converter automatic gearbox.

INTERIOR

Nestled in the new Mercedes SL, you’re seated so far from your passenger that it’s hard to believe this is a two-seat roadster at all. In terms of lateral cabin space, the SL is more like a limo. It’s even wider this time around, having grown by 57mm in girth, and provides acres of elbow and shoulder room.

Nevertheless, a pair of seats is all you get. The cabin, however, provides lots of room for two occupants, and not just in terms of occupant space. There’s a large storage cubby at the base of the centre stack, a roomy armrest cubby, a third covered cubby behind that and a lockable box immediately behind the passenger seat that is large enough to keep your valuables secure with the roof down. The new SL’s door pockets are extra-long (a consequence of the bass speakers for the audio system migrating to the footwells), and you can afford to sacrifice some legroom to accommodate soft bags behind the seats should the car’s boot capacity come up a bit short. But with 504 litres of space back there at a maximum, and room enough for a couple of travel cases even with the roof down, we’d say it’s unlikely to.

The luxuriant cabin materials and flawless fit and finish are impressive, even by Mercedes’ standards. A few testers found some of the styling a little flashy – the ‘SL’-branded gear selector, for example, lacks the classy reserve that has characterised this car in the past. Generally, however, you can’t help feeling superbly comfortable, obscenely well provided for and generally very fortunate indeed to be inside this car.

PERFORMANCE

If you feel fortunate to be inside the Mercedes SL at all, those who like impressive performance will feel luckier still to be in a 500 when the throttle is flattened. At our test track, pressing the right pedal into the carpet was enough to propel the SL500 to 60mph in 4.3sec – quicker than the previous SL63 AMG – and on to 100mph in less than 10 seconds. By a kilometre it’s doing 150mph. Make no mistake, this is premier league roadster performance.

But SL traditionalists need not fret, either. You only hear the 500’s engine should you want to and you need only feel the limits of its performance if you ask for them. The rest of the time the SL is happy to sit back and do the cruising that you’d expect of it. Locked into top gear, it’ll still pull from 50 to 70mph in 6.5sec. That’s a bit of a difference from the 2.1sec it wants in third gear, but amply impressive given that acceleration from 50mph in top starts from around 1250rpm.

And with it, it’s as utterly tractable and refined as you’d expect. At idle, cabin noise is restrained to just 41dB, which is in line with most executive and luxury saloons. Isolation is really terrific, too, although some road noise enters the equation later.

Not so long ago, a 4.7-litre turbocharged motor making 92bhp per litre would result in its owner being on first-name terms with their local petrol station proprietor. However, relax into a cruise and the SL500 will see you good for the other side of 30mpg, while we’d expect most owners to better our average return of 24.1mpg. Even if they don’t, they’ll still be looking at a credible 400-mile range between fills.

Sitting beneath the SL500 is the SL350, powered by a 3.5-litre V6 and costing from £72,495. As the only non-turbocharged SL, a linearity exists to the 350's performance that is absent elsewhere. Moreover, because of the SL350's 127bhp power disadvantage against the SL500, its power is more usable on UK roads. And 302bhp means it's still capable of 0-62mph in less than six seconds.

The range-topping SL63 AMG delivers quite ludicrous performance. Its reduced kerb weight over the previous SL combined with a twin-turbocharged 5.5-litre V8 means a torque-to-weight figure of 375lb ft per tonne, 89lb ft more than even the SLS AMG. Allied to 529bhp, this is enough for 0-62mph in 4.2 seconds.        

The SL braked with conviction; anything that takes less than 45 metres to come to a standstill from 70mph is a first-class stopper. Its brakes also resisted fade admirably on the handling circuit.