The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
“Sport, light, racing.” SLR, for short. Car nuts would easily fall for the SLR, with its overly aggressive stance and Merc badge. But somehow, I’m not that impressed and I’m not sure why. The SLR is a joint car project by McLaren and Mercedes Benz. Costing around 300,000 pounds, I’d say there’s so many more supercars that are much more affordable, like the Nissan Skyline R35. The R35 costs around less than a third of the SLR’s base price, but can go head-to-head with the SLR on any track any time of the day.
I’m somehow relieved to hear that the last SLR to roll of the production lines is due this year. Perhaps it’s the styling that really got me nicked. I’m really into small, lightweight cars but the sight of the SLR simply gets me worked up. It screams, “if you can’t afford me, then don’t drive me,” which really ticks me off.
Anyway, I like almost everything about the car, but I don’t like it as a whole. Maybe it’s the image that it projects, as an ultra-expensive supercar. It has carbon-ceramics brake discs which are almost the same stuff the Porsches are famous for. Such discs are fade resistant, meaning you don’t ever have to replace them if you’re only going to drive the SLR on the streets. I’ve read somewhere that such brakes won’t really stop you when they’re not warmed up to the right temperature. That kind of bothers me because I’ve always planned on getting racing brake pads for my street ride. Now that I think about it, the city traffic won’t be able to get such pads up to the right temperature, which may be worth much less than its price. Anyway, the reason why they’re fade resistant is because the discs and the pads are made of the same material. It eliminates wearing by actually depositing worn brake material onto each other. I guess that’s the simplest way to explain it. Like the Veyron, it has a rear wing that flips at an angle to help when braking.
To complement the SLR’s brakes, it has a 5.4-liter, SOHC V8 engine that’s hand-built. I’m not sure but I guess ‘hand-built’ means engineers really assembled the engine piece by piece. The cylinders are angled 90 degrees to each other and have three valves each – the first time I’ve heard of such – and is prepped by a dry sump lubrication system to bring its center of gravity down. Such a system allows more aggressive handling especially around corners. It has a relatively lower compression ratio as compared to most cars that cost less – 8.8:1 – but has a Lysholm-type twin-screw supercharger which gives you around 13 psi of boost. It also has twin-intercoolers to feed the engine with super-dense air supply. The engine churns around 617 hp at 6,500 revs and 780 Nm of torque at 3,250 revs.
Now, I’d say that’s a lot of mid-end power. I guess it has a lot to do with the massive power-to-weight ration. Its drivetrain configuration – front mid-engine rear-wheel drive – is also a first time for me. I’ve never seen anything like it. I guess it’ll give you less oversteer as compared to MR cars, but you’d have to deal with more understeer because of the greater front weight. With its carbon fiber body, I’d say the SLR is a real puncher. Able to run from 0 to 60 mp/h in around 3.8 seconds is quite a feat. And with a top speed of 208 mp/h, the SLR can really give Porsches a run for horsepower.
But I’d still pick the Porsche 911 GT2 over the SLR. Now, I guess I have to admit I also look at a car’s looks. Despite the SLR’s huge potential for performance, I’d pass it for a Porsche. It looks too ‘sophisticated’ for my taste.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_SLR_McLaren
