Future’s Past

October 13,2003

Juan Manuel Fangio. Stirling Moss. Karl Kling – three of the men who wrote motoring history in the 1950s and the ones who made the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR one of the most successful racing sports cars of all time.

The 1955 300 SLR had a formidable 3.0-liter eight-cylinder engine under its bonnet developing a healthy figure of 310 horsepower and 310 Newton-meters of torque. It is capable of reaching speeds in excess of 300 km/h – enough to power this Silver Arrows to victory among the most prestigious road races of the time: Mille Miglia, Targa Florio, Tourist Trophy, Eifelrennen and the Swedish Grand Prix.

Commemorating the vast achievements of the racing car, Rudolf Uhlenhaut, head of Mercedes-Benz’s passenger-car testing and racing car development program of that time, proceeded to build a road-going version, the 300 SLR Coupé. Weighing in at 1,117 kilograms, the 300 SLR Coupé had the racing car’s swooping shape and unique gull-wing type doors. Uhlenhaut plunked the same powerplant of the racing car into the coupe—easily making it the fastest two-seater of its time, and one of the most exciting cars that Mecerdes-Benz has ever built.

However, the 300 SLR Coupé was never destined for production. Mercedes-Benz thought that the mid-1950s was not the right time to bring out such a powerful sports tourer. The project was put on ice, with only two prototypes of this masterpiece of power and elegance ever built. But, as would soon be proven, legends never die.

Nearly fifty years later, Mercedes-Benz is once again reviving the legendary nameplate for the company’s supercar program. With such a long and venerated history behind the SLR name, the Stuttgart-based manufacturer is taking no chances. Designed, engineered and built with help of their Formula One partner, McLaren, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is the pinnacle of design and technology—and will no doubt shape the face of supercars to come.

The styling of the SLR harks back to the “Uhlenhaut Coupe” with its curvaceous shape, long bonnet and short tail, side port exhausts, aggressively-finned engine cooling ducts and of course, the now legendary gull-wing doors. However, Mercedes-Benz is not keen to revive the spirit of the 1950s alone. The SLR features modern touches including a double spoiler across the face and the trademark four-oval headlamp cluster design. In addition, the evocative arrow-shaped front is based on the partnership’s highly successful Formula One car.

In order not to ruin the SLR’s provocative shape, there is a lack of visible aerodynamic aids. However, designers from both Mercedes-Benz and McLaren have incorporated the needed elements for high-speed stability and road-holding. The wedge-shaped design, for instance, greatly reduces the co-efficient of drag, making the SLR effectively slice through the wind. At the back, the high-level rear not only contributes to a rather large luggage area, but incorporates a six-channel diffuser to give remarkable downforce.

True to its namesake, the SLR’s design concept is anything but ordinary. The body, for instance, is not made from unit-steel but rather is made from carbon fibre with reinforced aluminum. This special construction technique makes up for a bantam weight of 1,600 kilograms (similar to a Mercedes-Benz E-class), but boasts a level of rigidity and strength never before achieved on road-going vehicles. At the same time, it delivers an exemplary level of occupant protection in terms of energy absorption. Likewise, the suspension is grafted in aluminum and is covered by extraordinarily designed 18-inch wheels.

Under the hood, the SLR is powered by a Mercedes-Benz and AMG tuned 5.5-liter 24-valve V8. However, this is no ordinary eight-cylinder engine—it is built with care, by hand, at the custom engine manufacturing facility. It features another company trademark as well: the Kompressor technology. Supercharging the all-aluminum powerplant enables the SLR to have a power figure of 626 horsepower and a jaw-shattering 780 Newton-meters of torque from as low as 3,250 rpm, all of it being channeled to the rear wheels. Responsible for managing the engine’s brutal output is a custom-made five-speed automatic transmission with sequential shifting. Sliding the shifter towards the “Manual” enables the driver to shift using steering-wheel mounted buttons or the selector’s Touchshift function. In addition, the SLR has three preset stages: “Sport”, “SuperSport” and “Race”—all of which vary the shifting times.

The deadly combination of the engine and the transmission enables the SLR to hit 100 km/h from complete standstill in just 3.8 seconds; the proverbial figure of 300 km/h is attainable in just 28.8 seconds. The SLR’s terminal velocity is set provisionally at 334 km/h.

During the car’s long development program, spy photographers snapped up several pictures of rival supercars in Mercedes-Benz’s test track, particularly those that came in a less than subtle shade of Scarlet Red. McLaren Mercedes-Benz Formula One superstar, David Coulthard, is said to have lent a hand during the car’s final development and testing program.

Stopping a car with such ferocious pretensions requires the best braking system technology—and the SLR delivers on that end as well. The high-performance brakes are made from a new and innovative composite material. The fibre-reinforced ceramic disc brakes stand out with their extremely high heat resistance, low fade, outstanding structural strength and long service life. The SLR will also carry standard Mercedes-Benz safety features such as Sensotronic Brake Control (the electro-hydraulic braking system), Electronic Stability Program (ESP), and automatic tire pressure monitoring.

The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is by no means a bare-bones racing car for the road. Like any other Mercedes-Benz road car it features high-grade interior materials with extensive use of aluminum, carbon and specially-developed “Silver Arrows” leather. It also features individually padded bucket seats, a multi-function steering wheel with race-car-type buttons for manual gear-selection and chronometer-type gauges.

Slated to be the flagship of the Mercedes-Benz passenger car line, each SLR will be lovingly assembled by the careful hands of McLaren Cars Limited technicians at McLaren’s Paragon Technology Centre in Woking, England. The SLR will not replace the company’s already venerable SL and CL sports tourers; rather it will be aimed at a more select, more affluent and sport-oriented audience. It seems that Michael Schumacher and company will have to face some excellent competition on the road as well.

By Ulysses Ang | Photos Courtesy of DaimlerChrysler Press Office

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