2008 Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG review: Classic MOTOR

Stuttgart, early Thursday morning. Bleak weather, bright red car, 1200-odd clicks ahead of us. Germany to Cote d’Azur non-stop – a fast blast in search of the year’s first tan in Mercedes-Benz’s facelifted SL.

This feature was first published in MOTOR’s May 2008 issue.

There’s no doubt about it: the Benz designers ran the scalpel extra-deep on this top-of-the-line AMG version. The new SL63 certainly turns heads, but in some respects for the wrong reasons. Despite the three-pointed star, its single-bar grille looks generic General Motors and L-shaped headlamps mean they’re no longer an exclusive CLS trademark. The cluttered chin spoiler eats roadkill for breakfast and the wannabe SLR rear diffuser is quite simply one big, ugly piece of black plastic. First impression of the car? Thumbs down. Second impression? Thumbs up. So why the flip-flop?

Because now the SL63’s engine has fired and we’re moving. Promising intake rasp, serious punch, awesome transmission and better than expected ride. This is going to be fun.

That’s why we stick to the German through roads, via Garmisch, which are thankfully almost empty this morning and, after only 275 kays, this also applies to the fuel tank. It confirms our suspicion that the variation between suggested and actual consumption can, in the case of the SL63, be 100 percent. The test car’s consumption over the trip worked out at 16.8L/100km. It had nothing to do with driver discipline or a green conscience. Now that both the French and the Italian authorities have started impounding vehicles caught travelling at more than 200km/h, one often has second thoughts about flooring the loud pedal…

It is here that we devise a plan: instead of tip-toeing down the Brenner Pass in convoy with trucks and holiday traffic, we take a scenic shortcut through the Dolomites into Italy. In summer, once the snow’s melted, the most awe-inspiring link from Tyrol to Northern Italy is the Timmelsjoch Pass. It’s a drifter’s paradise with little traffic and downhills that test brakes and courage.

The most radical of the MCT settings is M. It holds the selected gear no matter what and is almost brutal in the way it juggles the ratios before flashing a mighty red warning light as the V8 approaches its 7200rpm redline.

All it needs now are personalised intake/exhaust melodies, a burn-out program and an in-dash drift recorder with slide angles and a spin-out danger meter to the HUD…

Autostrada Verona-Brescia, late afternoon. After 2987 emphatic direction changes, the head of the driver glows like the sunset we are about to relish. In pale contrast, the photographer’s complexion radiates that typical grey and dingy haze that surrounds the Po River – Italy’s longest.

Just as well Mercedes-Benz sent along a chase car with four fresh tyres. After all, the rear Michelin Pilot Sport Cups left plenty of signature marks on the yippee hairpins, the glorious second-gear esses and the wide-open third-gear sweepers. ESP Off is the obvious choice on this turf, although for maximum results and minimum damage you definitely want the road to be wide and the bends to be wide open. And where else but Italy do the Polizia pull over and wave you through with a double thumbs-up?

Extra money buys the AMG Performance Package with bigger brakes, a rear differential with a more aggressive 40-percent locking ratio, track suspension, race steering wheel and different cast-aluminium alloy wheels shod with (unchanged from the SL55) 255/35R19 tyres in the front and even fatter 285/30R19 software in the rear. We’d only take the enhanced traction diff and the larger-diameter front rotors.

It’s not really the engine that makes the difference though. Instead, it’s the much more versatile and competent gearbox that scores full marks, while the updated chassis earns the latest AMG roadster a small but quantifiable edge in handling, roadholding and ride comfort. Credit, we find, is due to the magic transmission that automatically blips the throttle during downshifts and can slip from seventh into fourth or from fifth into second without ever dropping a cog. Praise also goes to the neatly balanced, tarmac-hugging ABC suspension, the reassuringly powerful yet easy to modulate 19-inch brakes, and the meaty steering which is stoic enough to hold course at 250km/h and quick enough to catch that notoriously wayward tail.

Instead of darting through darkness with eyes wide shut, we stop for dinner, bed and breakfast near the French border, high up in the hills above Ventimiglia. Over a bottle of Brunello or two, the crew is in no hurry to weigh the SL63’s pros against the cons. On the should-do-better list, we note the obese kerb weight (not much change from two tonnes), the considerable high-speed thirst, the increasingly complex ergonomics (the SL must still do without the single Comand controller), the relatively tight packaging for occupants and luggage, the noisy but not particularly talented voice of the big-bore engine and the rather loud AMG livery.

Friday lunchtime, al fresco at the Rascasse restaurant in Monte Carlo. Two happy sun worshippers are keeping a watchful eye on their chariot which hums an end-of-journey kerbside tune – exhaust crackling, engine sizzling on and off like an invisible jazz brush, leather and plastic audibly expanding and contracting at random.

We could have, quite frankly, done without this facelift, and we simply cannot fall out of love with the 5.4-litre Kompressor overnight purely to embrace the new 6.2-litre unit that has replaced it. But on aggregate points, on all-round talent as well as on universal appeal, the SL63 AMG is indeed a step forward in the colourful history of the iconic two-seater Mercedes sports car which, long, long ago, stopped living up to its ‘Super Light’ moniker.

Bye-Bye Blower

When Mercedes-Benz launched its SL55 AMG hot-rod back in 2002, it created a sensation. Not only did this supercharged monster produce 368kW, but the thought of 720Nm impacting at just 2600rpm made your neck hairs stand on end. And the sound; the most anti-social, hellishly wicked V8 blare loads of money could buy … from a Mercedes!

FAST FACTS

LIKE: Superb transmission, suspension and brakes; serious punch DISLIKE: New engine overshadowed by SL55’s, generic front-end styling