What happened in MOTOR 19 years ago? We thrashed Mercedes-Benz’s $360k SL55 AMG

Drag Star

Forget the car, feel the motor. Has the SL55 AMG forever changed the way we look at Benz?

This feature was first published in MOTOR magazine's January 2003 issue

It would be wrong to suggest that Mercedes-Benz hasn’t built anything quite like this before, because it has. Plenty of times. Its racing cars have long boasted outrageous traditions; some of ’em howled, some screamed and the view from some just went blue-green-blue-green at very high speeds indeed.

It’s just that it’s never before had the audacity to publicly sell them.

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This thing’s not even just fast. It’s ferociously fast, but even that’s not the point. See, it’s not a fast car in a traditional, European sense. Incongruous it may seem, given its interior craftsmanship, the poise of its donor SL500 chassis and all that heritage, but the SL55 AMG is a hot rod, and in a curiously brutal American sense.

In short, this car means you’ll have to stop thinking of the Mercedes-Benz you’ve always known.

Not for it the painstaking development of chassis and suspension to exquisitely match each individual tremor of a highly-strung V8. This car doesn’t even try to hint at the integration of engine/gearbox/chassis/suspension into one tactile unit.

It is, instead, a magnificent car, which is simply and utterly dominated by its engine. Regardless of how impressive the rest of the car might be (and it is bloody impressive), it pales alongside that massive, throbbing, roaring mass sitting behind the grille.

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It looks like a Benz, for sure. In fact, it doesn’t look all that different to an SL500. The panels are the same shape, the body’s got holes in the same places and they share the low-teen timing on the folding steel roof. But it’s a cut above in menace and class. There’s the deeper chin and the quad pipes out the back. At 18 inches, the wheels aren’t enormous in modern terms (nor do they look that special). They are gigantic, though, when they’re viewed in the context of the arches. In profile, they fit like they were cut from solid.

The rubber isn’t bad, either. Benz has wrapped Pirelli P-Zeros around its million-spoke alloys and if the 255/40 spec up front sounds impressive, wait until you see the 285/35s down the back. And it takes but minutes to find out why the rears are that big…

These poor bastards are tasked with taking 700 Nm of torque, multiplying it down the five-speed auto ’box, multiplying it again through the final drive ratio, then converting it into straight line urge.

Because that’s what the 5.4-litre supercharged V8 demands. It’s so strong it smacks of being an abuse of the privilege. It’s the same engine as you’ll find in the new E55 but, with a bruising 368 kW, it totes more grunt. In the old money, it’s a full 500 horses and that’s edging up there towards being enough.

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Let’s face it, 12.8 seconds for the quarter mile – smashing through the traps at 190 km/h – is a very, very fast car. And it’s an auto! Those overstressed Pirellis struggle with the torque loads off the line, it’s very heavy (try 1965 kg!) and there’s always a bit of wheelspin to deal with.

Yet if you leave the traction control on it’ll still get there in 12.9, consistently, every time. No delicate balancing of throttle, no need to sneak in a touch of wheelspin to stop the engine bogging down. Step off the brake and onto the throttle and there’s a 12.9. And it thumps to 100 km/h in 4.76 seconds. This is an engine so impressive that it takes but eight seconds to accelerate from 100 km/h to 190 km/h.

But that’s not the end of it. The needle whips past 200 with the alacrity of an STi at its third gear torque peak. The next 50 km/h disappears in an uncompromising, unadulterated burst of fury that no other production car can match. Overtake from 100 km/h and any length of straight is enough temptation to give the raucous, throbbing monster its head. It crunches into the 250 km/h speed limiter with PLENTY to spare. So much so that, de-limited (as most of the German-delivered models are), this is the world’s fastest production car from 0-300 km/h (in 32.5 seconds!).

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It doesn’t so much sing its way to the redline, it bellows in an uneven, throbbing baritone, turned up to Eleven. It’s an incessant monster.

With this much urge, you’d expect throttle response, but not necessarily from a torque converter-carrying auto. This, flicked into its manual mode with the driver fiddling the steering wheel’s up-down paddles, is easily the most impressive gearbox in Benz’s arsenal. It will happily let you grab the rev limiter and, while its upshifts take probably three times as long as a flicked Maserati paddle, they’re still not bad. And they’re a lot smoother than the Italian’s, even if it lacks the sense of occasion.

The shame of having so dominant an engine is that nothing else burns its way into your memory of the car, even when it should. Front of mind is always the sledgehammer full body press, not the phenomenal brakes, the remarkable chassis poise, the neck-straining mid-corner grip. Front of mind is always the brutality of the supercharged V8.

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While the steering offers greater feel and involvement than any other Benz, it’s still no match for an M3’s cultured chit chat or a 911’s almost intuitive response, but it’s better than a C32. At this pace, it has to be.

This thing can pull more Gs than Halle Berry in a bikini, and it has such outstanding manners that it’s actually not difficult to drive. Where the Italians are constantly challenging you to lift your game, the SL55 makes it easy, gifting you speed and giving ordinary drivers the whiff of genius.

Point-to-point, there are few cars safer and easier to drive at ferocious speeds and a large degree of the credit goes to the same Sensotronic braking system as the SL500 runs. The system allows for each wheel to be braked individually, which means the computers can feed in precisely the maximum braking, regardless of how much steering lock the driver has on. What it also means is that if you cock your corner entry up, you can just stand on the brakes and the car will slow down with a complete absence of histrionics. For the quicker punters, it means you can adjust your driving style to brake all the way into the apex (a la Prost) before tapping that mighty V8 on the shoulder again.

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Either way, with active body control, it corners flatter than Shakira’s chest. That doesn’t mean you can do anything with the chassis (you can’t), but it’s not bad at all. To get the best out of it, it likes to be turned in gently rather than manhandled. Two tonnes of high-speed momentum will, regardless of the rubber beneath it, prefer the artful to the gruff.

It will ultimately understeer on the way into a corner and the braking system, body control and anti-skid systems mean it will never, ever oversteer without serious throttle inputs. But the chassis is so good you can turn the traction contol off and it still behaves itself with the manners of European royalty.

Of course, it steps out without electronic assistance, but it’s using bloody near all of its engine to do it, even out of tight corners. And the rigidity seems little different with the roof up or down.

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The cabin’s not that different to the SL500, which is to say it’s clean, simple, intuitive to use and a beautiful mix of the luxurious with the practical.

It isn’t a car for the faint of heart or the limp of wrist. If you wanna chill in a perfectly integrated convertible between your hits of macchiatto, take the SL500. If you want to do the same thing, safe in the knowledge that only a handful of production cars can outsprint you, this’ll be more your thing.

Brutal or not.

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