2013 Mercedes-Benz SL550: Cruise Missile! - Ignition Episode 15 - video Dailymotion

MotorTrend

On this episode of Ignition

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 This week on Ignition, we sample the latest in yacht rock.

00:06 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:10 When you think of big luxury cruise ship coops,

00:20 it's hard to avoid the Mercedes-Benz SL, partly

00:23 because of how long it's been in production

00:25 and how well it serves its class,

00:26 but also because, well, it's big and luxurious.

00:30 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:33 And that's something that's always bothered me,

00:38 because SL stands for Sport Leicht.

00:41 And while I butchered that pronunciation,

00:43 it means sport lightweight.

00:45 That's kind of an ironic title when

00:46 you consider that the last SL we tested

00:49 weighed nearly 4,200 pounds.

00:52 This new one's different, though.

00:53 It's made almost entirely of aluminum.

00:55 And as a result, it's lighter, despite being

00:57 longer and wider.

00:59 It also plays host to any number of engineering feats,

01:02 whether it's active suspension or a glass roof that

01:04 polarizes the sun.

01:06 And on top of being lighter, it's faster.

01:09 This car here, the SL 550, is the base car.

01:12 And it uses a twin-turbo, direct-injected 4.7 liter V8

01:16 that develops 429 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque.

01:22 516, that's more than the M5.

01:25 And that's more than most Corvettes make.

01:28 Traction, then, might be an issue.

01:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:34 But it's not.

01:35 Launching the SL is about as easy as it gets.

01:37 You select Sport mode on the suspension,

01:39 Sport mode on the transmission, and then you just

01:41 roll on the throttle aggressively.

01:43 You don't matt it.

01:43 You just roll on smoothly.

01:46 Traction control takes care of the rest.

01:48 And it's really hard to convey just how fast this thing is.

01:52 But it is very fast, indeed.

01:54 0 to 60 in 4 seconds.

01:56 It will hit the quarter mile in 12 and 1/2 seconds

01:59 at 114 miles an hour.

02:01 The top-end pull is insane.

02:06 It blows me away.

02:07 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:10 And now we begin our 60 to 0 braking test.

02:12 [TIRES SQUEALING]

02:15 It does get to a stop in a hurry.

02:17 Our best stop from 60 took 105 feet.

02:20 [ENGINE REVVING]

02:25 The power out of this SL always blows me away.

02:31 But when you enter a corner, it gets a bit interesting.

02:35 So what happens is this has a variable rate steering wheel.

02:39 And when you're on center, or when you're just off center,

02:42 the steering wheel does what you would expect.

02:44 But then when you turn in hard, the steering rate

02:47 increases dramatically.

02:48 So I find myself at times backing out of gearing inputs

02:52 that I've already put in.

02:55 Combine that with a super-torquey engine

02:58 and a very sharp throttle response,

03:01 and that makes for a car that's pretty interesting at the limit.

03:06 And not interesting in a fun way,

03:09 but interesting in a way that makes you really second guess

03:13 how you're approaching a corner.

03:16 You feel like you can always get it right on that line

03:18 to oversteer, right in that 0.5, 10 degree slip, like there.

03:25 But then you can never really hold it

03:27 because you get too much boost or the steering screws up

03:30 or something.

03:32 There's one thing that the SL reminds me of.

03:35 It's kind of like a mini SLS with a super-torquey engine,

03:40 super-aggressive throttle response,

03:43 and steering that's a little too busy for my taste,

03:47 or a little too aggressive for my taste.

03:50 [ENGINE REVVING]

03:54 [CHUCKLES]

03:55 [LAUGHS]

03:57 [MUSIC PLAYING]

04:01 So now you're probably wondering,

04:08 why are we reviewing this?

04:09 Why not a GT-R?

04:10 Why not a ZR1?

04:12 Why not four Subaru BRZs?

04:14 There's a very good reason for that,

04:16 and it's because there's something

04:17 just unquestionably cool about the big, giant, powerful SL

04:23 Benz.

04:24 You know, this car is not a sports car,

04:26 but it's not trying to be either.

04:28 It wants to be the big, comfortable, and luxurious yacht

04:32 out there in the sea of cars that you

04:34 see on the road every day.

04:35 It doesn't want to be a little race car.

04:37 It wants to be in it for the long haul, the comfortable ride

04:40 home after your power lunch, after the big meeting.

04:43 This is the car for the 1%.

04:45 [ENGINE REVVING]

04:48 There's a lot to like about the SL,

04:58 but I still can't get over the styling.

05:01 I mean, the car looks like it was developed

05:03 by three different people who never communicated

05:06 until the very end when they put it all together.

05:08 The front doesn't match the middle,

05:10 doesn't match the rear, and it just

05:12 has these odd proportions that sit oddly.

05:16 The only time it looks good is when

05:17 you're about three inches away from the nose

05:19 looking straight down.

05:20 The rest of the time, it's just kind of questionable.

05:24 [ENGINE REVVING]

05:27 I'm sure it's much more beautiful underneath the skin.

05:35 I mean, this car is mostly aluminum.

05:36 It's made of these gigantic cast aluminum pieces.

05:40 That must just be stunning to look at.

05:42 And likewise, the engineering that

05:44 goes into the rest of the car is very cool as well.

05:47 I mean, on top of heated and cooled seats,

05:49 we also get something called air scarf, which basically

05:51 is a vent in the back of the seat that gently blows

05:55 warm air on the back of your neck.

05:56 And it feels great on a cool day like we're in now.

05:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]

06:02 Straight above us is your typical glass sunroof,

06:06 but it's not just any sunroof.

06:08 It's something Mercedes-Benz calls Magic Sky Control.

06:11 That's kind of a silly name, but it has a very cool feature.

06:14 Press this button here, and the roof

06:16 polarizes like a pair of sunglasses

06:18 would, blocking out all the sun.

06:20 Press it again, and it's clear.

06:23 Makes a huge difference when you're driving down the road.

06:27 Another thing that makes the chassis cool

06:29 is not just the fact that it's made mostly of aluminum,

06:32 but the fact that when they were building it,

06:33 they realized there's all these empty holes in it

06:36 that could serve a purpose.

06:38 So what do they do?

06:39 Well, those tubes and holes in the chassis

06:41 actually act as resonators for the sound system.

06:44 So you don't have these big, bulky subwoofers

06:47 in the back of the car.

06:48 You have the sound being resonated in the chassis itself.

06:51 It's one of the first cars to do that.

06:53 [ENGINE REVVING]

06:56 You know, this is a convertible, so there is something

07:00 we really have to do.

07:01 [ENGINE REVVING]

07:04 And let's drop the top.

07:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]

07:08 I don't know what it is about dropping the top in any car,

07:22 as long as you can do it, that just makes

07:25 you want to drive harder and have a lot more fun.

07:28 Maybe it's the sound of the engine.

07:29 Maybe it's the wind.

07:30 It's the smell that's going by.

07:32 But it's hard to deny.

07:34 You want to drive more like a hooligan

07:36 when you can smell and hear what's going on outside of you.

07:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]

07:42 You know, if they were going to do a remake of Glen Gary, Glen

07:46 Ross, this is the car that Alec Baldwin

07:48 would have drove to show how good he was as a salesperson.

07:52 But then again, it may not be.

07:54 You see, someone at Mercedes thinks 516 pound-feet of torque

07:59 isn't enough.

08:00 So there are two more powerful versions coming.

08:03 The first is the SL63 with a 5 and 1/2 liter turbo V8,

08:07 making 590 pound-feet of torque.

08:10 And then there's the SL65 with a twin turbo

08:13 V12 that makes 738 pound-feet of torque.

08:17 It's almost as if they're making up numbers at that point.

08:19 While the SL550 may be the first step down the rabbit hole

08:25 when it comes to power output, I'd

08:27 argue it's a very good first step.

08:30 You put the confused styling aside,

08:32 and you find that what's under the sheet metal

08:34 is the stuff that does the SL name justice.

08:37 And I'd argue that there's no better sport

08:39 yacht on the road today.

08:41 [MUSIC PLAYING]

08:44 [MUSIC PLAYING]

08:48 [MUSIC PLAYING]

08:51 [MUSIC PLAYING]

08:55 [MUSIC PLAYING]

08:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]

09:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]

09:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]

09:09 [MUSIC PLAYING]

09:12 (upbeat music)

09:15 (upbeat music)

2013 Mercedes-Benz SL550: Cruise Missile! - Ignition Episode 15

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