HAMMER BLOW

Perhaps it’s a little unfair on the Mercedes that we drove the Ferrari first. The SL is a car that could happily blend into urban traffic until somebody in the know spotted the badge after all. You could leave it in Sainsbury’s car park and be fairly confident that you wouldn’t find a crowd of hysterical teens snapping it for their ‘socials’ on your return. How can a sensible, grown-up Benz possibly compare to the rollercoaster lunacy of a Maranello sex bomb?

The answer is – surprisingly well, actually. For starters, Mercedesbenz didn’t scrimp on the drama with this car. Sure, you have to dig a little to unearth it but that just makes the discovery all the more rewarding. Lifting the bonnet, for example, leaves you temporarily lost for words as your tech-addled brain struggles to reconcile the monstrous reality of what it’s trying to process. There’s a heck of a lot of engine in there, complete with the proud signature of the man who hammered it together. That brutal supercharged V8 could conceivably act as a dinner table if you bolted a set of legs to it. Suddenly the lengthy E-type-ish nose makes a certain amount of sense.

And there’s certainly no shortage of dreamweaving in the cabin. The starter button has been glued onto the top of the gearstick, which feels particularly James Bondish. But at the same time it all appears very grown-up. After the outright and deliberate silliness of the Ferrari, clambering into the sober-suited SL55 feels like you’re about to drive your dad’s old Ford Granada.

The cosseting continues as you ease the broad-hipped tourer into traffic. Everything feels very executive, very high-class. The interior has evidently been mapped out from first principles as an exemplar of quality materials and solid Teutonic fit-and-finish. There’s an S-class vibe, a deeprooted conviction that this car could serenely waft you to the other side of the Earth with barely a fluttered eyelash.

And then you put your foot down and everything in the world disappears in a backwards blur.

This sturdy, executive showpiece of dependable engineering simply shouldn’t be able to do what it does – it even corners completely flat. There’s no pitch or body roll at all – it just gets on with getting you around the corner with an efficiency that’s difficult to fathom or explain away.

Pulling up at a set of traffic lights, Mr Hyde climbs back into the spacious boot as Dr Jekyll once again wrestles control of the ECU. The blown bent-eight idles smoothly, almost silently. There’s no hint of the malevolence that lies beneath. As the light flashes green, we pull away gently, in deliberately leisurely fashion, just to see how it reacts – and it’s fully switched back to being a sensible dad-spec cruiser. Remarkable. So we stamp violently on the throttle like a belligerent teenager and, yes, Hyde’s back, whacking his mighty sledgehammer right into the very cheekbones of physics.

And this car truly shines when you’re not being sensible. Squeezing that throttle is like being given house points at school – it’s your visible, tangible reward for knowing how to do things right. There’s a reason why these bighearted SLS have such a fervent following today – they just do everything so well.