If you want a comfortable premium car, you get yourself a Mercedes. If you want a great dollop of performance to go along with it, then you get yourself an AMG. And if you want a rabid, fire-breathing monster, you get a Black series AMG. It also happens to be one of the most entertaining series of cars to drive, besides having the ability to scare children.
The SLS AMG had those abilites already, besides being a comfortable grand tourer - but Mercedes has seen it fit to develop a hardcore version under the Black moniker. It will be launched tomorrow, and here's what you can expect.
For one, there will be even wider tyres on the Black, to handle the extra power. That's expected to go all the way up to over 600bhp - maybe even 650bhp - but without the help of forced induction. Don't scoff, you in the back, the man who developed this engine is the same gentleman who was an instrumental figure in the development in the Porsche Carrera GT's V10. A strengthened version of the same seven-speed DCT gearbox will feed the power to the rear wheels. The 0-100kmph time is expected to come down to just over 3 seconds, and top speed will be over 200mph/320kmph. The suspension will be stiffer and more focused towards handling and grip rather than comfort. Weight will be shaved off the standard SLS, but we don't think there is much scope for improvement there, this being a car developed from the ground up by AMG.
This might just be the last hurrah of this wonderful engine which we've driven in the last-gen SL63 AMG, and we're sad to see it go despite the new engine being more powerful and cleaner.
We're not even going to speculate on the price, but you should know that this is going to be a very limited edition car, and judging by the prices of other Black series cars, it is going to be appropriately inappropriate, just like the cars that are nevertheless enormously desirable.
