Long rumored, the new “Gullwing” is finally here. Officially dubbed the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the ‘Gullwing’ name still fits. It has those doors that have been copied by every wanna-be tuner as well as folks like Briklin and DeLorean. And since it’s a Mercedes it’s been engineered and designed to within an inch of what Stuttgart thinks a Gullwing for 2010 should be designed and engineered like.
The quick thumbnail sketch works like this: aluminum spaceframe body with gullwing doors, AMG 6.3-liter V8 cranking out 571 hp, dry sump lubrication, seven-speed semi-auto dual-clutch transmission hanging in a transaxle out back and a aluminum double wishbone sports suspension. All that will add up to quite a car, because Mercedes wouldn’t let it be anything else (now would they).
Volker Mornhinweg, Chairman of Mercedes-AMG GmbH says as much: “Our customers will experience with the SLS AMG the expertise of our sports car manufacturer Mercedes-AMG, built up over 40 years of motor racing, along with the kind of scintillating design that only a top athlete from the Mercedes-Benz stable can offer.”
And Chairman of the Board Dr. Dieter Zetsche backs him up, “Mercedes-Benz is presenting an exhilarating super sports car in the guise of the new SLS AMG, which is bound to set the pulses of all car enthusiasts racing that extra bit faster. The SLS AMG is emotion pure and simple for the Mercedes-Benz brand and is set to become one of the most alluring sports cars of our era.”
Mercedes has paid a lot of attention to lightening the car as much as they could. Yeah, it’s still kind of porky, cause that’s Mercedes default, but at least they did carve away the pounds here and there. This is the first time, Mercedes-Benz is making a car with an aluminum chassis and body. This pares the curb weight down to 1620 kilograms excluding driver.
Naturally there’s a big mill under the bonnet. In the case of the modern Gullwing, it’s an AMG 6.3-liter V8 engine cranking out 571 hp at 6800 rpm. This gives the car a power-to-weight ratio of 2.84 kg/hp. The engine’s torque comes in at 650 Nm at 4750 rpm. This is enough to scoot the Gullwing from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.8 seconds, before going on to top out at a speed of 315 km/h.
All that power and torque get to the tarmac via a dual-clutch transmission located out back, transaxle style and connected to the plant via a torque tube (just like they used to with their race cars way back when). This also helps with weight distribution for a front engined car – even if, as is the case with the Gullwing, the mill is set way back in the chassis.
And to haul it all down there’s a nice set of high-performance ceramic -composite brakes at all corners. Not only do these run at higher heat than metal brakes, but they also offer an impressive weight reduction of around 40 percent.
Naturally the wheels and tires are beefy. They’re 9.5 x 19 inchers up front and 11.0 x 20 inches out back. The tires come in at 265/35 R19 for the front and 295/30 R20s for the rears. Or, to put it in hot rod terms, those are boss meats.
Price? Probably a lot. Find out what you could get for your first born on the open market, and then multiply that by 1.5.
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