EVO Car Reviews: SLR McLaren Roadster

Bartek S. · Feb 18, 2009

The 'Big Mac' is one of those supercars that begs for decent roads to play on...
A big car needs a big stage. And the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster is a very big car. It’s certainly got a big name, and it is currently making a very big noise. BRRrooaaAAAAAAR-yip! if I’m not mistaken.

Impressive though it is from within, I doubt the sound waves are having much effect on the Great Glen. It’s hard to tell at the moment, since it’s pitch black outside, but rocks that were formed before the continents existed aren’t likely to be that impressed by an SLR. I, on the other hand, might well be. I’ve driven the hardtop version once before, from Milton Keynes to Bruntingthorpe. It was frightening. Not at the airfield (even at 191mph), but on the roads around it, which just weren’t big enough to contain Merc’s hyper-coupe.

That’s why, today, we’re here. ‘Here’ being Fort William, once an English stronghold used to control Scottish uprisings, now Scotland’s adventure sports capital, and always in the shadow of Ben Nevis, guarding the southern entrance to the Great Glen. This massive geological fault-line bisects the country, running north-east through lochs Linnhe, Lochy (love that one – they must have run short of names) and Ness before exiting into the North Sea at Inverness. Above this imposing natural boundary lie the North West Highlands, the area we’re aiming to investigate. If our expectations are met, maybe we can encourage you to come up here too – and if, as we hope, we find some proper supercar roads, we’ll also be able to determine just how good the SLR Roadster really is.

We’re 90 miles above Fort William by the time the sky starts to lighten. Pre-dawn driving up here poses some unique challenges. There are no street lights, no nearby towns to cause a glow on the horizon, just perfect darkness, pierced only by moon, stars and headlights. It’s not making bonding with the 617bhp Merc an easy task.

Despite those bellowing exhausts, the SLR doesn’t shout supercar at me. Partly this is down to the visual relationship between it and the SL, partly to the brand, which doesn’t have the magnetism of the Italians, but mainly to the SLR’s comfortable, familiar feel. I hadn’t expected that when I pressed the panel, watched the door slide silently upwards, wiggled awkwardly across the wide sill and dropped down onto a fixed-back, thinly leathered carbon seat.

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