Just days after the Corvette Zr1 and Nissan GTR finished (for the moment) a Nurburgring street fight that has lasted months and was driving me nuts; Mercedes Benz has shown both companies the way to tighten the trousers of performance car fans everywhere. Meet Joe Black's car, the AMG SL65 Black Edition. As you can see from the photos it's a stunning example of how to apply the stripped out racer treatment to a production car. It's also a very different car to the capable, but in many ways stodgy Mercedes Benz SL. It's the automotive equivilent of Franka Potente
For one thing, fans of overweight, folding steel hard-tops everywhere have cause to mourn, because the Black Edition replaces that contraption with a beautifully wrought, carbon fibre panel to become a pure coupe. Black buyer's will lose the open air posing option, but combined with the car's new, and beautifully judged carbon fenders the roof allows them to shake hands with a weight decrease of a staggering 570lbs, down to a still violently obese 4,080lbs overall weight. The 6.0-liter, twin-turbo, V12 comes in for review with mods taking power up to 661bhp, though torque is still limited to 738lb-ft to save the dignity of the 5-speed automatic transmission's inner workings. Ah that transmission. It's an auto, so of course this isn't really my kind of car, but what can you expect from Mercedes? If they let the buyers shift for themselves, the car might not last quite as well. At least the shifting, even at 250 milli-seconds, stands to be much better accomplished than with any of the current manu-matic super cars.
Still, this looks to be one of the most hardcore sports cars from Mercedes in years, and I'm including the SLR in that assessment. It's better looking than the rather snouty SLR and it may end up being faster as well, though thankfully it has yet to sprout a "'ring time." It's also cheaper than Big Mac II, though a price north of $320,000 isn't going to have them flying off dealer floors. Mind, that probably won't bother Mercedes much, they're only planning to make about 350 of them. So far, I really like this car, and I think it will make a great development tool for the rumoured SLC Gull-wing. We'll just have to see where Mercedes go from here.
Just days after the Corvette Zr1 and Nissan GTR finished (for the moment) a Nurburgring street fight that has lasted months and was driving me nuts; Mercedes Benz has shown both companies the way to tighten the trousers of performance car fans everywhere. Meet Joe Black's car, the AMG SL65 Black Edition. As you can see from the photos it's a stunning example of how to apply the stripped out racer treatment to a production car. It's also a very different car to the capable, but in many ways stodgy Mercedes Benz SL. It's the automotive equivilent of Franka Potente 
For one thing, fans of overweight, folding steel hard-tops everywhere have cause to mourn, because the Black Edition replaces that contraption with a beautifully wrought, carbon fibre panel to become a pure coupe. Black buyer's will lose the open air posing option, but combined with the car's new, and beautifully judged carbon fenders the roof allows them to shake hands with a weight decrease of a staggering 570lbs, down to a still violently obese 4,080lbs overall weight. The 6.0-liter, twin-turbo, V12 comes in for review with mods taking power up to 661bhp, though torque is still limited to 738lb-ft to save the dignity of the 5-speed automatic transmission's inner workings. Ah that transmission. It's an auto, so of course this isn't really my kind of car, but what can you expect from Mercedes? If they let the buyers shift for themselves, the car might not last quite as well. At least the shifting, even at 250 milli-seconds, stands to be much better accomplished than with any of the current manu-matic super cars.
Still, this looks to be one of the most hardcore sports cars from Mercedes in years, and I'm including the SLR in that assessment. It's better looking than the rather snouty SLR and it may end up being faster as well, though thankfully it has yet to sprout a "'ring time." It's also cheaper than Big Mac II, though a price north of $320,000 isn't going to have them flying off dealer floors. Mind, that probably won't bother Mercedes much, they're only planning to make about 350 of them. So far, I really like this car, and I think it will make a great development tool for the rumoured SLC Gull-wing. We'll just have to see where Mercedes go from here.
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