Mercedes SLC Sounds Like Death on a Stick
Forgeddabout that unstable idle. (We're pretty unstable when we're idle too. Alternatively, unstable idles are the devil's plaything.) The new Mercedes SLC looks to be what the Mercedes McLaren wasn't: affordable. Wait, that's not it. While I'm busy thinking of a witty repost, play the video and contemplate the joys of burning a gallon of gas every couple of miles with your tail wagging like a miniature Schnauzer that just eviscerated a large rat (no animals were harmed in the making of this metaphor). Pistonheads' passive construction workers [via Motor Authority; you know how that goes] tell us that the SLC "is likely to be a direct successor to the McLaren SLR and is expected to be fitted with an AMG 6.2-litre V8 producing almost 700bhp." But who's listening when that monster motors' mauling the tarmac? Never mind all that when did TTAC start promoting gas guzzling hypercars while criticizing gas-guzzling hypercars stuff. When did Mercedes decide it was OK to crib the font end design from a 1979 TVR 3000 S? And how the Hell do you get out of a gullwing supercar in a supermarket parking lot? [Frank: very carefully.]
More by Robert Farago
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Nothing looks more phallic than an SLR. After all, it has a five-foot schlong stamped into the hood with a Mercedes emblem at the tip... This is clearly a mule. It needs a lot more crap tacked to the exterior to be a current AMG product. Remember when AMG meant an understated monochromatic paint job?
Hmmm, looks like a Viper... sounds like a Viper... handles like a Viper... looks like there's something other than just the $6,Billion Daimler stole from Chrylser.
I wouldn't be surprised if this car was built on the same chassis as the Viper, the proportions are entirely too similar for it to be JUST using Viper-like body panels. Besides, mules don't get pushed as hard as this one unless it's close to finished. So the overall aero may indeed be worked out, and it STILL looks like a Viper. That's Daimler for you, they take your best stuff, withhold their best from you, then dump you.
If the "best" that Chrysler could do was a copy of a 1950's chassis with a 1960's motor, one cannot hold out much hope for them. The Viper is a nice Cobra replica, but it is still a replica: big pushrod engine in a Cobraesque body. Come to think of it, isn't Lutz responsible for this one? Here's hoping that the new hot Benz is not proportioned like the mule, or the SLR as both are just plain ugly. Even if the ZR1 doesn't have quite the "tooth" of a GT2, it is a beautifully proportioned car, and sounds way better than this MB mule, pushrods or no.