On this episode of Ignition
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MotorTranscript
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]
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09:12 (upbeat music)
09:15 (upbeat music)