Best Hybrid Car

This German wonder car is already confirmed with the soaring pricetag beyond half-million US dollar and now Mercedes SLS has been revealed to be road-ready.

The obvious highlight is the upward-opening ‘gullwing’ doors that – like the front-end styling – take their inspiration from the classic Mercedes SL coupe of the 1950s. But the 21st century gullwing is a thoroughly modern machine with an aluminium space-frame body, a 420 kiloWatt V8 engine set just ahead of the two-seater cabin, 19-inch front and 20-inch rear alloys, and AMG’s first seven-speed dual-clutch manu-matic transmission.

Much of the early talk about the gullwing — no-one seriously expects it to be called the SLS – is about the styling, from the unique doors to the fifties-inspired air intakes and the muscular way the body is wrapped around the wheels. However the GLS is an AMG road rocket that has a top speed which has to

be held back to 317km/h and a 0-100km/h sprint time of 3.8 seconds. In some ways the SLS AMG is a successor to the McLaren-Mercedes SLR, but it is around one-third of the price and is a full-on Benz production, not a collaboration with its Formula One partner.

Clients are already lined up in Australia for their first glance at the gullwings, which are expected to land in the first quarter of 2010 and to be featured at the exclusive AMG drive day held at the Albert Park on the Australian Grand Prix circuit. “Yes, we are holding sizeable deposits on the car. We have orders currently for five cars and we think the biggest problem is that our allocation will not be big enough,” McCarthy says. “We do not have the final price yet but it will be competitive in the class. Companies like Ferrari and others make supercars, but we’re talking a production run of around 1200 cars and that’s pretty serious numbers.”

Mercedes SLS spent a lot of time ensuring the gullwing is both fast and refined, a major criticism of the track-tuned SLR. It still weighs 1620 kilograms and the seats are only 369mm above the road, but the seat backs are made from magnesium, there is a useable glovebox and a Bang&Olufsen surround sound system. “It is unmistakably a Mercedes. There is a great distinction of 300SL in the make and design, but it is definitely not a copy. It is a homage for Mercedes, but it moves the entire history along.

“When we specified the cars there were two items we’ve made standard – the fitted car cover and the trickle charger. It means the car can definitely sit in the garage and be ready for instant and any action.”