As an amuse-bouche to the Los Angeles Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz proudly and confidently revealed its new 2013 SL to a group of 15 American journalists at the automaker's chic design center in sun-drenched Carlsbad, California. We were allowed to look and touch and sit in the new SL, but we weren't allowed to take pictures. You and the rest of the world will have to wait until January to see the new big Mercedes roadster at the Detroit auto show. This essay, then, is an attempt to explain what I saw behind closed doors near San Diego.
The SL has long been a standard-bearer for the Mercedes brand. Flashy, sexy, fast, safe, luxurious, and exclusive -- it's all of the brand values rolled into one, minus a back seat. Since the original 300 SL launched in 1954, and really since the R107 SL launched in 1971, the SL has represented all of Mercedes' best thinking crammed into one, four-wheeled place. Of course, the SLS AMG kinda monkey-wrenches the notion that the SL sits atop the brand, but no marketing strategy is perfect. Anyhow, the new SL (internally named R231) looks to be more of the same, and that same is good. It also looks -- to my eyes, at least -- like the most technically advanced chassis ever fitted to a production car.
Let's start with the body-in-white. Mercedes claims it is more than 20-percent stiffer than the chassis on the outgoing R230. Almost 90 percent of the chassis is made from aluminum -- 89 percent, to be exact. Because of rollover requirements, the A-pillars, the top of the windshield, the pop-up roll hoops, and part of the roof are high-strength steel. And there's a flap of magnesium covering the gas tank. Counting the magnesium, other metals make up 3 percent of the total structure. Using that much lightweight material on its own is impressive, though not exactly groundbreaking. What is new, and novel is the sheer amount of cast aluminum.
You have to see the size of some of these cast aluminum pieces to believe 'em. According to Mercedes, the firewall is largest piece of cast aluminum found on any production car. I believe it. More impressive to my admittedly non-engineering eyes are the two massive pieces that form the rear end. On the previous steel-chassis car, a similar structure required 18 components. On the new SL? Just three. Again, three. Obviously, the weight savings from such aluminum-intensive construction are big: When compared to the outgoing SL, we're 242 pounds less for the chassis and 308 pounds overall once the aluminum body panels are bolted on. Of course, that's for the SL with the V-6, a car we're not going to get (yet) in North America. The SL with the twin-turbo 4.7-liter V-8 will weigh 275 pounds less than the car it replaces.
" Almost 90 percent of the chassis is made from aluminum -- 89 percent, to be exact. "
The construction techniques are also pretty noteworthy, or at least, I took a lot of notes during the presentation. The various hunks of metal are joined to each other via folding, riveting, bonding, MIG welding, or (my favorite) friction stir welding. That latter technique is where you lay two pieces of metal next to or on top of each other and go at them with a tool spinning so fast it melts the alloy, joining the pieces together. Crazy cool stuff. Also nifty: Many of the cast pieces were welded to hydroformed extruded piecesPerhaps even better is that several of the cast pieces have ribbing for strength. To reiterate, the world's never seen a chassis like this.
What about engines? Well, MB is being fairly tight-lipped about what exactly will be powering the new SL. "We want to have something for you guys to write about in January," said Bernd Stegmann, the marketing director for the new SL. However, I've been perfecting a technique for getting information out of tight-lipped German PR folks. Say untrue things to them -- they can't take it. "So, you're doing a diesel SL, right?" I sprang the trap and in correcting me, he spilled the beans.
The 2013 SL will have a V-6 engine in the rest of the world and be known as the SL350. Here in the States there will only be the 4.7-liter twin-turbo V-8 version to be called the SL550, just like the last one. Though in Europe it's badged as the SL500. At first. However, as sure as you know the sun is rising, you know an AMG version is coming (and Mercedes semi-slyly left some AMG stamped body panels sitting in the corner). The SL63 AMG is going to have a version of AMG's hot M157 motor with two turbos, 5.5 liters of displacement, and tons of power. So much power, in fact, that the new SL63 would encroach on a new SL600. So, here's the big scoop. The next SL will almost certainly have only one V-12 power plant and that will most likely take the form of a gut-bustingly potent SL65.
Mercedes-Benz has seemingly gotten itself into the habit of releasing one new piece of technology with every car released. Recently, the SLK debuted the "Magic Roof" technology, the preposterously named but undeniably cool piece of glass that turns opaque at the touch of a button. The new SL can be had with a Magic Roof (doubly tricky because like the SLK, the SL has a folding metal hardtop), but it also gets some new tech of its own. Ready for this one? Magic Vision Control! Sounds good, right? What is this new piece of tech? Better windshield wipers.
That's right friends, Mercedes-Benz has built a better windshield wiper. Essentially, the blade has double rows of tiny holes that squirt water/fluid directly onto the windshield. And since the spritzers are on the blade, the fluid can only go where the blade goes. So, the windshield gets squirted while the blades are moving up, and then the mess is wiped up when the blades sweep down. Very cool, and from what they showed us, it works well. But... Magic Vision Control? Are they adults? I mean, imagine if the guy that invented windshield wipers had suggested they be called Magic Vision Controllers. Laughter is the only cure for marketing run amok like this. And Mercedes North American PR team assured me that the new, better wipers will not be called magic anything here in the U.S.
Another new piece of technology is the much more smartly named FrontBass. Basically, the engineers mounted the subwoofers in the firewall. They then use the (obviously) hollow footwell to resonate the bass frequencies. Mercedes claims this is uber-million times better than it was before, and we did get to sit inside a mule and have a straight-faced German guy say, "Are you ready to pump up the volume?" before he deafened us with some techno and the FrontBass system. Well, the stereo sounded very good to me. However, I think the biggest benefit is that the subwoofers get moved off the doors, thereby allowing more cubbyholes for stuff. When there's no back seat, extra storage space in a luxury in and of itself. And quite quickly, the new interior looks lovely.
And so we come to the big question, the reason you've read on so far: How does the 2013 Mercedes-Benz SL look? Not very good, I'm sad to report. Recently, I was at the reveal of the Cadillac Ciel concept, and even though we were outside, the collective gasping was more than just audible. When Mercedes peeled the cover back from the new SL, the room was utterly silent. Perhaps more telling, several of the Germans on hand had never seen the car in the flesh before. They didn't seem too impressed.
What's wrong with it? You get the sense that the accounting team said something to the effect of, "You only get 20 pieces of design flair; use them wisely." And somewhere around the A-pillar, they ran out. The result is that the front of the car looks nothing at all like the rear of the car. The nose is aggressive, gnarled, and angular. The rear end is soft and smooth-looking. Weirder still, a third motif shows up when the SL is viewed from the side. I walked up to a MB designer and said, "It looks like two different people designed it." He was very quiet for a moment before he said, "Three."
So there you have it. Because of its lightweight, incredibly stiff chassis, the new SL should be the best-driving Mercedes of them all. And because you'll be behind the wheel, you won't have to look at it.
