Underneath the long hood is a complex and potent engine. The compact cabin is just appropriate for two adults. The tapering trunk is roomy more than enough to carry golf clubs, or the accouterments for a lengthy weekend in Monaco or Montecito. A convertible major completes the package.
This formulation dates to 1954 for the Mercedes SL, a two-door roadster that is the longest-running nameplate in Mercedes-Benz’s generation vehicle heritage. (The initials stand for tremendous leicht, or tremendous-light, a German superlative for sportiness.)
Mercedes not long ago unveiled an all-new SL, the seventh era of this product, true to its roots, but with important modern day updates.
“At Mercedes, an SL is very significantly the major icon we can get,” claimed Gorden Wagener, the world wide main structure officer for Daimler, the mother or father company of Mercedes-Benz. “Next to the S-Class, it is at the main of the manufacturer — most likely even more robust than the S-Class,” he explained, referring to the brand’s benchmark luxurious sedan.
This new SL is the to start with to include things like all-wheel-drive, as very well as four-wheel steering, maximizing security, functionality and maneuverability. It is the first to be made from the floor up by Mercedes’s go-speedy subsidiary, AMG, which served style and design the chassis and will provide, at introduction in the United States, a twin-turbocharged 4.-liter V-8 with output of 480 horsepower (in the SL 55) or 560 horsepower (in the SL 63). Pricing for the SL 55 is predicted to get started just about 6 figures, and the excess horses really should value about 20 % extra.
The new era is also the initial to guarantee a plug-in hybrid option, which will arrive later in the products cycle and be dependent on Benz’s Formula 1 race technology, privileging efficiency in excess of performance. And it is the 1st in decades to element a electrical power-folding cloth top, alternatively of a house-robbing retractable hardtop. This freed up room for an additional long-dropped SL feature, a two-plus-two seating configuration, with smaller rear buckets suitable for components, like hand luggage, or small young children.
Many of these elements are intended to help return the SL to previous glory. “I’m a huge fan of the 300 SL Gullwing,” Mr. Wagener explained, referring to the original product in the lineage, a really hard-main athletics coupe derived from a winning racecar. “With the new automobile, I preferred to make it as close as probable to the incredibly first just one and try out to infuse that DNA into the new product.”
In addition to reflecting the previous, Mercedes emphasised a eyesight of the future — “to make it a very modern day SL, a electronic roadster, the motor vehicle that signifies the transformation that the industry is heading by means of,” Mr. Wagener included.
This implies that the new SL is laden with advanced technological innovation. It has an Lcd dashboard, and a nearly 12-inch, pill-like central contact monitor that tilts and adjusts for improved viewing when the major is down and gentle is abundant. It characteristics a navigation procedure enhanced with augmented actuality, which jobs directional animations onto the windshield in the driver’s perspective. Its braking system utilizes cameras and sensors to detect oncoming website traffic throughout turns. It can even modify lanes and park itself (when instructed to by the driver).
Mr. Wagener hopes that this whiz-bangery will convey clean fans into the SL’s demographic. “The SL has a very set up clientele, but I believe that with the new design, we will get a good deal of new consumers, also youthful shoppers,” he stated.
These an injection appears to be required. The SL has extensive been shorthand for a type of pinnacle of achievements — stars including Clark Gable, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, John Lennon, Burt Reynolds, Bob Marley, Tina Turner, Jennifer Aniston and Jude Regulation have owned SLs. But as luxurious consumer preferences have shifted away from athletics coupes (and each individual other category of motor vehicle) in favor of sport utility automobiles, profits for the SL plunged. In 2003, Mercedes bought above 13,000 SLs in The united states. Last year, it marketed close to 1,300.
A shifting merchandise portfolio may possibly give some aid. The new SL’s system will also be applied to support the upcoming generation of Mercedes’s extra significant sports automobile, the AMG GT coupe and roadster. And the marque will be removing the two-door versions of its S-Course, a move that Mr. Wagener hopes will thrust “many buyers that previously ended up driving the S-Coupe and Cabriolet to get into the SL.”
Fortuitously, resilience and adaptability are among the the SL’s several attributes. “It’s 1 of all those vehicles which is constantly evolving to be a reflection of the period it arrived from,” reported Brian Rabold, vice president for automotive intelligence at Hagerty, an insurance company of collectible motor vehicles and a normal-bearer in their valuation.
The W198 “Gullwing” SL of 1954-63 is a futuristic outlier, a Sputnik-like marshaling of Mercedes’s attempts to get back prestige right after the ignominy of its collaboration with the Nazi routine in the course of Entire world War II. (The smaller sized, similarly styled but much a lot less progressive W121 of 1955-63 is a bit of a stepchild of this technology.)
The W113 “Pagoda” SL of 1963-71 is a delicate midcentury fashionable design, with sleek unadorned sides and a subtly ornamental concave roof that attained it its nickname. The R107 “Panzer” SL of 1971-89 is “Me Ten years/Greed Is Good” testament to stolid, chrome-slathered particular luxurious, ahead seeking but baroquely moored in custom. The R129 SL of 1989-2001 is sharp edged and technical, an overbuilt tour de drive symbolizing the glorious terminus of the analog age.
The R230 of 2001-11 is rather amorphous in appearance. With scores of true and virtual buttons expected to get the job done a fiddly in-dash infotainment method, and an extremely sophisticated collapsible hardtop, it was encouraged by the alternatives of electronic layout before it caught up to the talents. The R231 of 2011-20, although rapid and comfortable, hosts awkward proportions that really do not fairly align even Mr. Wagener known as them “not genuinely pleasing.”
According to Mr. Rabold, several of these automobiles are collectible. Significant-excellent initial-technology SLs have lengthy been blue-chip seven-determine vehicles. Next-era autos have had sizeable appreciation above the previous five years, climbing 20 per cent in benefit, with fantastic illustrations reaching the 6-figure mark. Best-notch 3rd-technology vehicles, particularly 560SLs from the conclusion of the operate, are approaching this stage as effectively, getting risen in price tag as much as 47 % in the past 12 months by yourself. Desire and values are expanding even for fifth-generation automobiles, as they reach the 20-yr-outdated mark and start out their changeover from utilized vehicles to collectibles.
But it is the fourth era that has skilled the most substantial improves. According to Mr. Rabold, leading-of-the-line, V-12-run versions have jumped over 150 p.c in value since 2016, and even extra operate-of-the-mill V-8 models have had selling price will increase of much more than 75 p.c. This surge is because of in portion to their sophisticated design and stout engineering, but generally to the generational whims of the collector auto marketplace, which sees each individual cohort chasing and buying the cars and trucks of its youth. With Generation X in its peak earning years, cars and trucks of the ’90s are incredibly hot.
Mercedes has trotted out some of the nameplate’s earlier stars to lend luster to the new SL. This even more renews fascination in vehicles that individuals might have neglected about.
“It often brings new notice again to the outdated versions, specifically in a manufacturer like this and a nameplate like this, wherever it’s drawing from these types of an proven historical past,” Mr. Rabold reported. On the other hand, he warned, “It does not always adhere to that increased curiosity interprets to greater dollars.”
Though this extensive heritage lends prestige and prominence to the most up-to-date design, it can also exert considerable stress.
“It’s normally a big obligation to do the up coming SL,” Mr. Wagener said. “You really don’t want to be the 1 to mess up the SL.”
