2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG on Ice by Inside Line
#1
02-18-2010, 11:18 AM
2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG on Ice by Inside Line 
"You don't really understand the cold until you've been to the Arctic. In the winter months here in northern Sweden, the sun barely raises its head and the temperature struggles to better zero degrees Fahrenheit. It's a brutal environment and an incongruous place to meet the 2011 Mercedes SLS AMG.
It's incongruous but not unusual, because when the cold weather really bites, the city of Kiruna becomes a playground for Europe's automotive development engineers. The local hotels are littered with men in garish jackets that bear names like Bosch, Continental and Mercedes. And it's impossible to drive for more than an hour without spotting a top-secret prototype bedecked in camouflage clothing. If you're a spy photographer and not afraid of the cold, this tiny town on the fringe of the Arctic Circle is Shangri-La.
Driving a 563-horsepower supercar like the 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG in the ice and snow should be easy, don't you think? No one else up here under the Northern Lights seems to be having any problems. It won't be like driving that Ferrari F430 Spider across Italy like I did a few years ago, or even like whipping that Ferrari 612 Scaglietti across India (with a roll of toilet paper in hand almost all the way), but it should be doable, right?
What have I let myself in for?
South to Alaska
Our 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS rolls out of the truck dressed in bright red. The Mercedes engineers brought it to Kiruna for a final cold-weather systems check before production begins in March and now they're done. I've been tasked with driving the car 250 miles south across the Arctic Circle to the town of Arvidsjaur, which, in terms of latitude, is on a par with northern Alaska.
When I first saw the SLS on its stand at the auto show, I wasn't sure about it. The macho nose looked slightly at odds with the curvaceous rump, which itself seemed an awkward pastiche of the iconic Mercedes-Benz SL300 of the 1950s. But here in the wild, smeared in ice and snow, the Gullwing looks much more effective. The SLS might not have the flamboyance of the cartoonlike Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren — a car I've driven many times — but it still has plenty of impact and those gullwing doors are pure theatre.
We're running on standard winter tires, similar to those used throughout Europe at this time of year. Studded tires would be more sensible for the conditions, but they'd provide less of a challenge for the stability control system and less of a test of my manhood. Today, concentration and finesse top the agenda.
We crawl out of Kiruna, a city of around 18,000 people. Sweden's most northerly city built its fortune on the production of iron ore, but more recently it's diversified into ecotourism and even space exploration — Kiruna has signed a deal with Virgin Galactic to house Spaceport Sweden. It would be easy to imagine the astronauts becoming confused, as so desolate is the countryside that you could be forgiven for thinking you'd already reached the moon.
Point South, Hope for Warmth
Not surprisingly, most locals here travel by Volvo and they're not afraid to push on. If your roads are smothered in ice for seven months of the year, you learn to adapt, so it's little wonder that so many of the great rally drivers hail from this part of the world.
In the 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, I'm being cautious. The 6.2-liter V8 musters 563 hp and the slightest tickle of the throttle seems to make the stability control light dance to a disco beat. I pop the seven-speed dual-clutch automated manual transmission into Manual mode and use the shift paddles on the steering wheel to change up early, something the electronics seem surprisingly reluctant to do.
Mercedes is billing this car as a proper GT, a car that owners could use every day, even though few will. This is the first time AMG has been permitted to develop a complete car, but it hasn't been given too much license to get overly frisky with the design. For example, the ultra-conservative cabin could only have hailed from Stuttgart."
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2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG on Ice
#10
02-19-2010, 04:39 PM
I am slowly beginning to like this car more and more. German engineering is just top rate.
I know what it needs, another picture with the door opeN! I get it, its a friggin gullwing!
I know what it needs, another picture with the door opeN! I get it, its a friggin gullwing!
Last edited by TeutonicCarFan; 02-19-2010 at 04:44 PM.