DON VARGHESE

To cut it’s looong nose short, and to put it into one sentence, the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG could be described as taking a big step into the past and a giant’s leap into the future. 

The very essence of it, the exterior design, was made to bring about flashbacks of the company’s glorious racing era as well as resemble one particular model, one they called the ‘Widowmaker’. And that it does extremely well. 

But what’s an AMG without a huge displacing, explosive sounding, 500 HP plus engine? That is where the guys in Germany seem to have got it spot on. Apart from when you’re standing drop-dead staring at it, most things about the SLS will hint at the future. So we should certainly feel privileged that now, if you fancy driving on the inside circumference of a tunnel, and ofcourse if your bank balance allows it so, you could go out and buy your very own RHD SLS AMG in India.

Mercedes-Benz launched the ‘super sports car’ in India yesterday, and the specs stay the same with the 6.3 litre V8 AMG engine, an AMG sports steering and a high-performance braking system, a 3-stage ESP and the AMG SPEEDSHIFT DCT 7-speed tranny all present to name a few. It is also the same car that has been doing the rounds this Formula One season as the Safety Car, so track experience certainly hasn’t been kept to a minimum while the company claims it has already received 10 bookings since it was displayed at the Auto Expo 2010 in New Delhi, thus meaning exclusivity is no issue so far. And for those of you who wondered about the advertisement being shown on TV, the company also claims that it was a dry sump lubrication system that enabled Michael Schumacher to become a professional stuntman.