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Top Gear goes underground, quite literally, in the SL65 Black, beneath London in some tunnels. A twin-turbo V12 produces 670bhp, making it the most powerful AMG Mercedes ever. Click through the gallery for the full story...
As the Black rolls off the ramps and into London's early evening gloom, the countdown begins. One single night. For all our begging and cajoling, that's all the time Mercedes has given us in the Black. Oh, and if it leaves London, moustachioed German heavies will turn up at Top Gear HQ and murder us in new and interesting ways. The most powerful AMG Merc ever, the SL65 Black, the car christened ‘Der Beast' by its Frankenstein-esque creators, and we're limited to one night in the most congested, cramped city in Europe.
Just to make things interesting, the previous day has seen the heaviest snowfalls in Britain in 20 years. Snow that's freezing rapidly to sheet ice on the roads, making 670bhp and rear-wheel drive look a tad suicidal. Still, one night. The clock is ticking. Let's head underground.
The Blackwall Tunnel seems a good place to start. We spear south under the Thames, a thousand rings of dim, flaxy streetlight whipping backwards over the Black’s flanks as it dives deeper below London. There is noise, and that noise is... whistling. The car is whistling. It’s an ominous, unearthly noise, a murderous chorus of Roger Whittakers rising and falling as the turbos suck frozen air through the tunnel’s south entrance and spit it out behind.
As the lights on the rev counter flash, climb and glow to red, the Roger Whittaker medley subsides. Now there's raw mechanical noise, a dozen cylinders threshing a metallic, overdriven chorus. Speed, too. The increments on the speedo are ticking off with alarming haste as the Black barrels out of the tunnel and back into the LondoThe Black is wide. Literally, figuratively. The longer you look at it, the more it seems to swell, to flex its anabolically enhanced flanks. Cast your eyes down from the roof: the top half of the Black's silhouette is stock SL - petite, proportioned, sensible, albeit with a carbon-fibre fixed roof (complete with integral roll cage) replacing the stock folding hard-top - but hit the top of the arches and it all goes steroidal. There's a full handspan of flare on either side, the stance of a gym-obsessed bulldog in Eighties shoulder-pads.
There's function behind the hulking form. The Black's engineers managed to shave 250kg - the *****alent of a pair of sturdy South London publicans - off the SL65's kerbweight, seemingly by employing the simple mantra, ‘But what if we made it out of carbon fibre instead?' - the door panels, splitter, diffuser and most of the interior are rendered in black weave. The seats wouldn't be out of place in the Design Museum just up the road from here: gorgeous, sculpted carbon-fibre buckets, barely an inch thick. No tilt or lumbar adjustability here: you'll sit where you're told and be happy with your lot.
The SL65's mighty 6.0-litre V12 didn't escape Dr Frankenblack's knife, either. A pair of massive new turbos, larger air intakes and exhausts boost power from 612bhp to 670bhp - a full 53bhp more than the McMerc SLR, 69bhp more than the Ferrari 599. There's 737lb ft of torque available, curbed by 20 per cent or so to prevent the SL's five-speed auto gearbox turning itself into a messy, cog-strewn interpretation of a cheese twist. On a warm, balmy day on, say, a race circuit in the south of France - Merc expects the Black to spend half its life on the track - this would be a wonderful thing to have under the deployment of your right foot. Right now, it's like having your toe trapped in the pin of a grenade
As the Black rolls off the ramps and into London's early evening gloom, the countdown begins. One single night. For all our begging and cajoling, that's all the time Mercedes has given us in the Black. Oh, and if it leaves London, moustachioed German heavies will turn up at Top Gear HQ and murder us in new and interesting ways. The most powerful AMG Merc ever, the SL65 Black, the car christened ‘Der Beast' by its Frankenstein-esque creators, and we're limited to one night in the most congested, cramped city in Europe.
Just to make things interesting, the previous day has seen the heaviest snowfalls in Britain in 20 years. Snow that's freezing rapidly to sheet ice on the roads, making 670bhp and rear-wheel drive look a tad suicidal. Still, one night. The clock is ticking. Let's head underground.
The Blackwall Tunnel seems a good place to start. We spear south under the Thames, a thousand rings of dim, flaxy streetlight whipping backwards over the Black’s flanks as it dives deeper below London. There is noise, and that noise is... whistling. The car is whistling. It’s an ominous, unearthly noise, a murderous chorus of Roger Whittakers rising and falling as the turbos suck frozen air through the tunnel’s south entrance and spit it out behind.
As the lights on the rev counter flash, climb and glow to red, the Roger Whittaker medley subsides. Now there's raw mechanical noise, a dozen cylinders threshing a metallic, overdriven chorus. Speed, too. The increments on the speedo are ticking off with alarming haste as the Black barrels out of the tunnel and back into the LondoThe Black is wide. Literally, figuratively. The longer you look at it, the more it seems to swell, to flex its anabolically enhanced flanks. Cast your eyes down from the roof: the top half of the Black's silhouette is stock SL - petite, proportioned, sensible, albeit with a carbon-fibre fixed roof (complete with integral roll cage) replacing the stock folding hard-top - but hit the top of the arches and it all goes steroidal. There's a full handspan of flare on either side, the stance of a gym-obsessed bulldog in Eighties shoulder-pads.
There's function behind the hulking form. The Black's engineers managed to shave 250kg - the *****alent of a pair of sturdy South London publicans - off the SL65's kerbweight, seemingly by employing the simple mantra, ‘But what if we made it out of carbon fibre instead?' - the door panels, splitter, diffuser and most of the interior are rendered in black weave. The seats wouldn't be out of place in the Design Museum just up the road from here: gorgeous, sculpted carbon-fibre buckets, barely an inch thick. No tilt or lumbar adjustability here: you'll sit where you're told and be happy with your lot.
The SL65's mighty 6.0-litre V12 didn't escape Dr Frankenblack's knife, either. A pair of massive new turbos, larger air intakes and exhausts boost power from 612bhp to 670bhp - a full 53bhp more than the McMerc SLR, 69bhp more than the Ferrari 599. There's 737lb ft of torque available, curbed by 20 per cent or so to prevent the SL's five-speed auto gearbox turning itself into a messy, cog-strewn interpretation of a cheese twist. On a warm, balmy day on, say, a race circuit in the south of France - Merc expects the Black to spend half its life on the track - this would be a wonderful thing to have under the deployment of your right foot. Right now, it's like having your toe trapped in the pin of a grenade
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