Supercar Sunday: Mercedes McLaren SLR

New Delhi: Mercedes SLRs were the primal sense of beauty, with the earliest example of how the supercars would look in the coming years. In terms of generations, I find this to be my favourite design element from Mercedes with the angel-eye headlights. In the collaboration between Mercedes and McLaren, you had the German sensibility and luxury, while the British made it racetrack-ready.

In short, you could drive it to Nurburgring, drive around the circuit and then drive it back, all the way to Oslo. It is based on the Mercedes 300 SLR and acted as a blueprint for the SLS AMG. It came with a front-engine with the cockpit hanging a little back. The large front end didn’t exactly compromise on the spade, of course, and it felt like a normal car. It came with a proper-sized boot and air conditioning, something that left many journalists and car critics dumbfounded back when it came out in 2003.

It was a normal car until you pushed the throttle, when you could see why it was being considered to compete with the likes of Lamborghinis of the time. It came with a 5.4-litre supercharged V8 engine, operated with  AMG SPEEDSHIFT R five-speed automatic transmission. It had a top speed of 334 kph (207 mph) and could do 0-100 kph in just 3.4 seconds. 

At the time of its launch, it was one of the fastest automatic cars to have ever been on the road. The whole body was made from carbon fibre, making it very lightweight yet strong. In fact, it was the first series-produced car that had the entire crash structure made from carbon fibre.

The disc brake was made of carbon ceramic and was  Sensotronic Brake Control, which meant electronics completely controlled it, and nothing was mechanical about it. It was mechanically and aerodynamically very sound. 

On the inside, it had a mix of leather, aluminium and carbon fibre to make the interior both sporty and balanced. It came with a curved instrument binnacle with large gauges and digital readouts, rotary powertrain controls, standard Mercedes switchgear for climate control, and even a prominent air brake switch. All of this was kept in mind, keeping in mind the driver and how he would react.

The seating positions were deep and made of carbon fibre to continue with this sporty and dynamic driving. Though coming with good dimensions, the passenger cell is quite compact, made to help the driver remain focused.

That was good, but it wasn’t just like any other supercar. Most of them at the time were quite brittle and needed the utmost care during production and tests. The SLR, though, was different. When Mercedes had to do their cold-weather test for the SLR, they drove it to the Arctic Circle, did their test, and drove it back. This was something you could only dream of doing with a Lamborghini Gallardo or a Ferrari 360.