Mercedes-Benz SL550

"Since peaking with five-figure sales in the early 2000s, the SL has steadily sank to only a couple thousand cars sold in 2011. So it’s about time Mercedes Benz reinvigorated its line"

All images courtesy of Kerian (except the R107).

In the Westeros of the Automotive Kingdom, there are several lineages that control vast tracts of the market wilderness. And just as in Game of Thrones, the stakes for controlling these battle-scorched acres of real estate are massive and the rewards lucrative; no king wants to relinquish his crown. Porsche boasts the cold brilliance of its 911 hegemony, Ferrari wears the laurel wreath of its mid-engined V8s, Lamborghini rules with the iron fist of its feared firebreathing V12s, and Mercedes-Benz has its elegant SL lineage -- the most historically hallowed line of luxury convertibles in the automotive fiefdom.

But just as with any game, power ebbs and flows, and Benz’s droptop dominance is not what it once was. Since peaking with five-figure sales in the early 2000s, the SL has steadily sank to only a couple thousand cars sold in 2011. So it’s about time Mercedes-Benz reinvigorated its line, which in nearly six decades of existence has only been updated four times. In 2013, it enters its sixth generation.



The SL line began with a wallop in 1954 with the landmark “Gullwing” SL, and quickly followed up with the roadster droptop in 1957. These are some of the most coveted automobiles on planet Earth, and its succeeding generations retained their bloodline’s elegance and stateliness. This remained until the third-gen “R107” body type -- you know, the boxy one that lasted throughout most of our adolescences (from 1972 to 1989).



To put that in perspective, while John Bonham could’ve bought a brand new R107 with the royalties from Zeppelin IV, so could have Kurt Cobain with his Bleach money. That is, if both had not redirected significant gains into respective drug habits. But I digress.

So it’s pivotal that Benz gets this sixth-gen SL right, and in many ways it does. While the car is not built for the track -- it leaves that slick playground to its SLS AMG roadster and upcoming AMG SL brethren -- the car performs. Its aluminum monocoque chassis keeps the car taught and rigid, and yet exceptionally light. Together with its magnesium-framed roof it not only lowers the car’s center of gravity but sheds 270 pounds from the scale. That’s like dropping LeBron James and his giant albatross off at the train station (although looks like that wretched bird may be jumping off his broad shoulders sooner than we expected).



Its updated 429-horsepower twin-turbo 4.7-liter V8 sees a remarkable boost in torque from 391 pound-feet to 516 -- most of it available at just 1,800 rpms, which means plenty of juice to overtake the weak at almost any speed. Its direct-injected powerplant even shaved nearly a second off from the 0-60 mph click of its predecessor, hitting that arbitrary threshold in 4.5 seconds. Combine that power with the stiff chassis and the SL550’s standard Active Body Control (a hydraulic suspension system which eliminates up to 95% of body pitch, roll and squat), and you have a car that can dip and dive through canyons with great feel and precision.

Of course Benz doesn’t just rest there. It adds a slew of magic beans, like the “Frontbass” sound system, which cleverly incorporates the front longitudinals as built-in subwoofer resonance chambers; the Airscarf feature, which blows warm air directly on your neck like a well-versed concubine; and, of course, the Magic Sky Control, a feature as mysterious as it sounds. With the touch of a fingertip, you can darken the panoramic roof from transparent glass into a dark opaque. Is it magic or simply an electro-chromatic system of charged particles? One will never know.

(The Magic Vision Control, which incorporates the cleaning fluid nozzles directly into the wipers instead of the windshield to better control flow and splash, is decidedly less enchanting.)

So for about $106K base, you clearly get a lot of car, with plenty of electronic jewels to keep the lineage feeling august. About the only shame with the 2013 SL550 would be aspects of its design. Flourishes like rakes along the side air vents are utterly superfluous; they're plastic baubles adorned to remind you of the car’s ancestry. But for those early generations, those touches played necessary functions, not fanciful roles. If the SL lineage is to remain on the throne of luxury droptops, Benz needs to remember its strength lies in its future ahead, not its past glory.

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