Mercedes-AMG SLS

The SLS AMG, built from 2010, was the first complete car Mercedes-AMG developed in-house rather than a reworked Mercedes-Benz model. It is built around an aluminium spaceframe, carries a 6.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 rated at 571 PS mounted behind the front axle line, and sends drive rearwards through a carbon-fibre torque tube to a seven-speed dual-clutch transaxle sitting with the differential. That layout puts the two heaviest components at opposite ends of the wheelbase and gives the car a clear rearward weight bias, which is the reason it turns in the way it does.

The long bonnet and short tail are a deliberate reference, and so are the doors. The SLS was AMG's answer to the question of what a modern 300 SL Gullwing would look like, and the resemblance is a matter of proportion as much as detail.

How the SLS AMG revived the gullwing door

On the 1954 original the upward-opening doors were forced on the engineers by the tubular spaceframe's deep sills. On the SLS they are a choice: the aluminium structure did not require them, so the hinges, the gas struts and the pyrotechnic release that fires the doors open after a rollover all had to be engineered specifically for the car. That is also why the Roadster version, which came a year later, uses conventional doors — removing the fixed roof takes away the structure the gullwing hinges mount to. The last and hardest version of the coupé, the SLS AMG Black Series of 2013, kept the doors, raised output, stripped weight and stiffened the whole car.

In the Batman Garage collection the SLS is the bridge between the classic Mercedes in the garage and the current AMG machinery. It follows the 300 SL directly, its Black Series derivative is one of the two cars examined in our SL 65 and SLS AMG Black Series collector guide, and the front-mid-engine, rear-transaxle layout it introduced carries straight into the AMG GT Black Series. The full Black Series family, six cars in total, is listed in our overview of every AMG Black Series model.