None More Groe: Here's The 2013 SL65 AMG

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Suck it, proles! While the up-and-coming, emerging-market, cheap-and-cheerful crowd enthuses over the prospect of Datsun’s return or considers the purchase of Daewoo’s Chevrolet’s latest Korean global minicar, the nice people at Mercedes-Benz have decided to cut the one percent (real or imagined) in on the action with an early release of the 2013 SL65 roadster, er, cabriolet, er, whatever the hell it is.

The previous-generation SL65 was a rather one-dimensional creature. Your humble author had the chance to spin a peanut-eyed SL55 and SL65 back-to-back around Autobahn Country Club with Australian stock-car racer and driving-school founder Barry Graham about six years ago, and we both came to the conclusion that the SL55 was actually faster. The big twelve’s calendarian turbo lag and apatosaurian weight wrote an on-track check that its additional 140 or so horsepower over the supercharged V-8 version couldn’t cash. Luckily for fast-Benz fans, the SL63 which arrived afterwards was maybe the most satisfying AMG SL, since it had that wonderful, free-spinning naturally-aspirated AMG-specific V-8.

The new-gen SL63 unceremoniously tosses the six-point-two, I mean, six-point-three V-8 in favor of a twin-turbo 5.5 coupled with a 250-pound weight reduction. For some people, however, that won’t be enough, so Mercedes-Benz will debut an SL65 at New York next month.

The engine is mostly carryover, retuned for 621 horsepower instead of 604. Torque stays the same at 738 pound-feet. This torque figure, which appears all over the big-buck German spec sheets, is significant for two reasons. First, it equates to a round thousand newton-meters. Second, it was widely considered to be all the power the old five-speed Benz automatic could handle. That transmission does not return for 2013, however; instead, a beefed-up 7G-TRONIC will be doing the shifting. It’s a shame, really: the old transmission wasn’t the smoothest thing going, but it was durable.

Weight is down to 4,299 pounds or thereabouts. Price will be in the $200K range. As before, the depreciation curve should run at approximately dead vertical, so if you’re genuinely smitten by the idea of owning a singularly awkward German Corvette that gets seven miles per gallon, waiting two years should enable you to take delivery at half price.

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • DearS DearS on Mar 20, 2012

    THe V8 TT -is not able to get 621hp? Ok its no use talking to buyers. No one needs a v12tt or v8tt. Life is so unfair. Glad im joyous. I'll take my attitude, humility and wisdom over any car, so life is good to me. See you on the road of life Sl65. ill be in the old Inline6 lighter 4 door. ill be the one daancing.

  • TonyJZX TonyJZX on Mar 20, 2012

    i think the top gear boys said it best... (paraphrasing)... "this is the best car to drive to a factory and then fire everyone..."

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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