Mercedes works Black magic on SLS AMG
WILLOW SPRINGS, Calif. — This is Mercedes when it gets serious. This is Mercedes when all the marketers, all the product planners, all the public relations hacks as well as every other corporate namby-pamby who stifle engineering creativity are told to leave the room.
This is AMG’s design team not having to worry about pedestrian trifles like comfort, civility and — Lord, I hate just saying the word — “accessibility.”
We had a hint of this previously untapped resolve when AMG affixed its Black Series badging to the C63 AMG. Serious as a heart attack, the C63 barked, spat and generally acted like a frothing-at-the-mouth Rottweiler tugging at its leash. It was loud, it was crass and, most importantly, it was so very fast. It made BMW’s M3 seem a tad mushy.
But, in the end, it was just a C-Class. What, we inveterate motor heads dreamed, would happen if they worked the same magic on the SLS, a purpose-built sports car that had been mollycoddled into a grand touring car? Would we see the same dramatic improvement? Could AMG’s Black magic cast the same rubber-shredding spell on the two-seater? Most importantly, was the basic architecture of the stock SLS up to the task?
The answer, in order, is yes, yes, and Lordy, did they slip a GT3 under this SLS’s hood?
Those who shop their cars by spec sheets will be more impressed with the big V-8’s 39-horsepower increase, its maximum of 622 hp occurring at a heady-for-a-V-8-witha-94.5-millimetre-stroke7,400 r.p.m. The 6.2-litre’s redline is now 8,000 r.p.m., and those 800 increased r.p.m. are a struggle to engineer without fragging connecting rod and crankshaft alike.
Unlike most engines given such performance tweaks, the Black’s V-8 gets a thorough rework, with wider main bearing supporting the more stressed crankshaft, higher tensile bolts making sure those rods don’t separate, and a revised dry-sump oiling system said to scavenge as much as 75 litres of Mobil synthetic a minute at full chat.
Those perusing spec sheets will find the improvement to straight-line acceleration fairly minimal, with the Black’s 3.6 seconds to 100 kilometres an hour just a shade quicker than the basic SLS. And search AMG’s press material a little deeper and you will find that the S version of both the turbocharged E 63 and CLS 63 AMGs will match the Black’s best and the E63 AMG wagon being just 0.1 seconds behind.
Nonetheless, the engine is a gem, screaming like a big Jimmie Johnson V-8 on the high banking at Talladega every time it touches 8,000 r.p.m. And our test Blacks touch 8,000 regularly.
Despite the terrible abuse — the most I’ve ever seen at a press event — the SLS soaks up in eight hours of merciless flogging, there is never the slightest hint that it is under any stress at all. That something so fast, so single purposefully sporty could also be so robust makes this one of the most impressive Mercedes I’ve ever driven.
It is also the very best sports car AMG has ever produced. It’s most certainly worth the $76,100 bump Mercedes Canada is demanding for the SLS Black ($294,000) over the basic GT version ($217,900).
And while time will determine whether the Black SLS really can bear comparison to all the classics that have come before it, it may very well be the best front-engine, rear-wheel-drive sports car ever made.