On this episode of Ignition
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MotorTranscript
00:00 Perhaps we weren't exactly fair the last time we reviewed the SLS.
00:14 There was good reason for that, though.
00:15 It was because the SLS was, frankly, a sledgehammer of a car with one incredible engine.
00:21 It was very difficult to drive quickly and not what you might call in a fun way.
00:27 Now there's a new one.
00:46 This is the SLS AMG GT.
00:49 And starting this year, it's replacing the standard car in the US.
00:53 They've gone through and retuned the suspension to improve its limit handling,
00:56 reprogrammed the transmission to make it shift faster,
00:59 and they gave it more horsepower.
01:01 Not because it needed it, but because, well, that's just what AMG does.
01:06 The extra 20 horsepower didn't show itself during acceleration testing,
01:10 where the SLS reached 60 in 3.7 seconds and the quarter mile in 11.7 seconds
01:15 at 124 and 1/2 miles an hour, essentially tying the last SLS we tested.
01:22 The same goes for braking.
01:23 The GT took 107 feet to stop from 60 miles an hour.
01:27 The big differences came around our figure 8.
01:38 Where the last SLS would slide on turn-in, the GT was more stable,
01:43 allowing it to carry more speed on corner entry.
01:46 That extra speed lasted throughout the corner, evident by the GT's higher
01:50 average lateral G.
01:52 While the handling numbers are impressive,
01:54 they don't illustrate the effort that the GT requires.
01:57 It has great difficulty with traction under throttle,
02:00 no matter how carefully you apply it.
02:02 I just finished a lapping session with the SLS AMG GT.
02:17 And you can see its lap time here.
02:19 Now, you may be asking, where's Randy?
02:21 Why isn't he driving?
02:22 Well, he's not here today.
02:24 He definitely would be faster.
02:26 No argument there.
02:28 But I'll tell you what it's like for the normal person
02:32 to drive an SLS at the limit.
02:34 It's hairy.
02:35 It requires a lot of effort, a lot of concentration.
02:38 The peculiar thing is the last SLS took a lot of concentration,
02:43 a lot of planning around corners.
02:44 You had to carefully modulate your braking, your throttle,
02:48 to get the thing around the corners quickly.
02:50 And with this car, it doesn't seem much of it has changed.
02:54 Obviously, the braking performance is very, very nice.
02:57 You have very good pedal control.
02:59 And you feel like you can stop the car always
03:02 within reach of where you wanted to stop initially.
03:05 That said, the suspension tweaks that Mercedes
03:07 has done to the rear, I'm not sure
03:09 exactly what's happening there.
03:11 Because the original SLS was an extremely loose car on throttle.
03:16 You didn't really know when it was going to step out.
03:19 And when it did, it happened like a binary situation.
03:22 It was like, you're going fine, you're going fine.
03:24 All of a sudden, the tail's out.
03:25 And when it's out, you need very, very quick hands
03:28 and very careful throttle control.
03:30 This car is still the same thing.
03:32 It may be a little less like that.
03:35 But still, when this thing loses grip,
03:38 it goes very, very quickly.
03:41 The way it drives, though, is so strange.
03:43 Because you look at this car from the outside,
03:45 and you see its long nose.
03:47 I mean, from the interior, this hood
03:48 looks like it ends in Texas.
03:50 But it doesn't drive like the way it looks.
03:54 You imagine this is a front engine, rear drive car.
03:57 It's going to have a front weight bias.
03:59 It's going to have most of its weight on the front axle.
04:02 It should feel like a muscle car.
04:05 It doesn't.
04:06 It, in fact, has a rear weight bias.
04:08 And so it drives kind of like a mid-engine car.
04:13 And so that's why when the rear tires slip,
04:16 the whole car goes very quickly.
04:17 Because that's what mid-engine cars tend to do.
04:21 Chassis aside, though, this engine-- oh,
04:24 this engine is awesome.
04:27 The sound it makes is absolutely phenomenal.
04:31 When you're hard on the gas, and you grab a big downshift,
04:34 it gives you just the most satisfying bark
04:37 from the throttle.
04:38 It revs instantly.
04:40 It has this burble and crackle and pop.
04:43 It's just intoxicating.
04:47 Listen to that.
04:48 [ENGINE REVVING]
04:51 And it has this wonderfully high 7,000, 7,200 RPM red line.
04:57 And it just gets sweeter and sweeter up until that point.
05:01 Downshifts are so beautiful in this thing.
05:04 What I love about the SLS is that it
05:06 is unquestionably a supercar.
05:08 It hits all the criteria, which to me
05:10 is it's something you lust after.
05:13 It's something that gives you aspiration.
05:15 It's something that just immediately draws you
05:17 in through some sort of gut instinct.
05:18 And I think the most crucial part about this car that
05:21 does that is, well, of course, the engine,
05:22 but also the exterior styling, which
05:25 is just so cartoonishly exaggerated in every sense.
05:29 It's like the standard old SLS Roadster
05:31 has just blown up and been multiplied by 300%,
05:35 expanded out.
05:37 Old Roadsters never felt this big.
05:39 This thing feels massive.
05:40 There's just so much car everywhere with the hood way
05:44 out there.
05:45 And you look back, and even though we're basically
05:47 sitting on the rear axle, it seems
05:48 like there's a whole nother six feet of car back there.
05:51 Interior space is massive, although when
05:53 I had my helmet on, I kept banging it
05:54 against the roof here.
05:57 It is cartoonish, but that's what supercars should be.
06:03 It does that very well.
06:04 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:09 The SLS remains a conflicted car,
06:12 with dazzling sheet metal and an intoxicating engine note.
06:16 Though more controllable than last year's model,
06:18 its chassis retains an inelegance,
06:20 especially under throttle.
06:22 And it requires extraordinary restraint from its driver.
06:26 Yet the engine doesn't want moderation,
06:28 and it's easy to slip under its spell.
06:30 When you do, you'll find yourself spending the rest
06:32 of the day power sliding.
06:35 In this sense, the SLS is as glorious
06:37 as it is clumsy.
06:39 It makes you wonder, does it matter when it looks
06:41 and sounds the way it does?
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07:14 (upbeat music)