I've always thought that the original gull-wing, the Mercedes-Benz 300SL was one of the best looking cars that MB ever created and this was a work of a genius when it was made available to the public in 1954. Yea, Lambos had their scissors doors that slide up, and while it looks cool and all, you can't deny that the gull-wing made the car look like a plane. Although it looks amazing, the doors were rubbish. You see, the door sills as you can see there were made rather unusual and if you were to sit in it, it'll be as if you were sitting in a boat or some sorts. This meant getting in and out was rather troublesome. To rectify this, Mercedes-Benz introduced a tilt-away steering column to ease access, but since there were no electronics back then, you'd have to do it manually... still much of a chore.
But who cares? You had doors that flapped like a large bird of prey and back then, this was the fastest production car money could buy. But then again, it was a pain to live with, kinda like how all supercars were back then. This car was the first-ever gasoline powered car to have fuel injection directly into the combustion chamber and since they did not have any ECU or control device back then, the injection had to be done manually via a mechanical fuel pump. This created a lot of problems as it did not do it in intervals, but rather continuously. So, when the engine was running, it'll s quirt. When you came to a halt, it'll squirt. That's fine. The problem comes when the fuel pump actually squirts fuel into the chambers during the interval between shutting off the ignition and the engine coming to a stop and with the access fuel in the engine, it acts as a cleaning agent by washing off all lubricating oil on the cylinder walls and diluting the lube itself. You can imagine what that'll do to the engine in the long run... I'll leave that to your imagination.
The above is the latest print ad that Mercedes-Benz has come up with for the latest SLS AMG. I like the tag-line, "A cockpit. An engine. Two wings. Is it still a car?"
That really stirs up your heart when you look at it. OK, I'm still pissed that the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren had an automatic gearbox and for those of us who have driven a Mercedes-Benz automatic gearbox know that it's one that doesn't work on a sports car. If it doesn't work on a sports car, why give one to a supercar? I'm glad that the new SLS AMG has a better gearbox mated to the engine and this is one masterpiece that ALL the people involved with the car has to be given credit. It looks good on paper and sounds good as well. From the statements that the fortunate motoring journalists in Europe who have driven the car, I can find no faults with the car. The future looks bright for the SLS AMG.
It'll do 100km/h in 3.8 seconds and that's supercar territory. I'll leave the write up about the car for another posting but for the time being, here's an advert of the all-new SLS AMG featuring none other than their current driver for Mercedes GP Petronas, Michael Schumacher introducing the car. Enjoy.
Labels: 300SL, AMG, cockpit, gull-wing, Mercedes-Benz, Michael Schumacher, SLS, wings
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