Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and AMG GT S Feature – Part ll

This is going to be a very good day, and that’s despite it being too early in the morning for our regular breakfast joint in Lonavala to roll up its shutters. Parked in the empty lot are two AMGs – one white, one yellow – two AMGs rumbling louder than our stomachs, two engines hotter than the chai we were looking forward to. It’s the Diwali weekend and it’s only a matter of time before the crowds turn one of our favourite driving roads into a shit pot. We have three, maybe four hours of peace, and that means breakfast can wait. Time to shatter the peace, and make a few fitness enthusiasts very, very angry.

India gets only the more powerful ‘S’. We are not complaining

I jump into the AMG GT, for the simple reason that I don’t want to drive the SLS over those nasty speed breakers they’ve now thrown on the way up to Aamby Valley. And, of course, I’m dying to drive the GT. Ouseph rated it a notch higher than the 911 after driving it at Laguna Seca in the US a few months ago. To me there could be no higher praise; after all, when the day comes, the 911 will be the first sports car I buy.

First impressions then and the GT looks yummy. The yellow is a bit too look-at-me for my taste but for a press car meant to scream out on magazine covers, it does a damn fine job. You might find a hint of the 911 and Jaguar F-Type in the tailgate, but I see more of the SLS AMG in the exaggerated hood and the cabin humped up over the rear wheels. And of course, the Porsche 928 in achingly slim taillights that look literally stickered on to the rump. Whether by design or not, it definitely is son of the SLS, shrunken and smoothened over, but sharing the same DNA. And that baby-butt-smooth rear end harks back even more strongly to its grandfather, the 300 SL Gullwing.

With a lighter engine than the SLS AMG, the GT S still manages to do a 0-100kmph sprint in same 3.8 seconds

Ah, the gullwing. Born out of necessity on the 300 SL racers of the fifties, could there be a more pornographic way to alight from an automobile? These doors are what drew Jagdish Thackersay to the SLS, and the doors are what have already made the SLS AMG a modern classic. Resisting the urge to give the AMG GT gullwings is an inspired move – leaves all the existing SLS’s to steadily go up in value till a range-topping AMG supercar thunders along in a couple of years. (Cars as an investment? You bet!).

Swing open the door and despite the searing yellow of the GT all eyes are hooked on the SLS. Drama, baby! On the inside though the SLS looks spartan. At one point this cabin informed the design direction of all Merc interiors; today it looks old, lifted up only by the red leather seats and upholstery. In contrast the GT looks fabulous on the inside, particularly after Ouseph tells me the wide centre console with four (glass) buttons on either side is inspired by the hot-vee motor. Two XXL-size Starbucks coffee mugs can fit in the vee, just like two turbos nestle in the vee of the motor up front. How cool is that? It, of course, results in the gearlever being positioned way back and stupidly out of reach, but it looks so gorgeous that I wouldn’t have it any other way. It pleases me no end that a company as rigidly German as Mercedes can sometimes sacrifice function for a bit of style.

Note the buttons arraged to resemble a V8

Enough talking, let’s get on with the driving.

Bada-bada-boom! The GT is loud! This motor is turbo-charged, as is every other new sports car engine whether it is from Ferrari or Porsche or BMW. Yet AMG engineers haven’t resorted to piping in exhaust and engine noises into the cabin like BMW and, even, Porsche. What you hear is what the engine makes and that, again, pleases me no end. Sure the turbos muffle the really sweet bit at the very top of the rev range but it is still hardcore. The Lakshmi bombs set off by your pesky neighbours for Diwali won’t match up to the GT on a full-bore assault.

For now though we take it easy, doing the side-cross over speed-breakers. After the second, I decide to go over it straight and the GT takes it comfortably. Not the SLS that crunches its underside. Ouch! In my rear view mirror the SLS’s incredibly long nose is almost scraping the tarmac and when Jagdish pulls out to overtake, boy oh boy, that 6.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 explodes in my face.

The blade gets sharper as you turn that knob right

You will never know what loud is unless you’ve been in the presence of an SLS AMG driven in anger. Even on part throttle, there is a rumble and crack like thunder and lightning as unburnt fuel explodes in the exhaust. People will collect SLS AMGs for the doors (wonder what made people buy an SLS Roadster?) but for me the highlight has and will always be the noise. Like god gargling and then thundering out the commandments. Nothing sounds like the SLS, and with the move to turbocharging, nothing ever will. It makes me sad. And then, when we swap cars, and I blip the throttle, it makes me very, very happy.

When I first drove the SLS five years ago in Affalterbach in Germany (where AMGs are made) my very first impression was of a hot rod. A hot rod that could go round corners, after all it was made by the Germans, but a hot rod nevertheless. And even today, after all these years, the SLS still feels like a hot-bloody-rod. That long, never-ending bonnet is intimidating, to say the least; the body is so wide that you have to be careful lest the outside wheel starts picking up gravel from the shoulder. It is not a car you jump in to and drive on the limit, especially if the road is twisty and the limit involves Sport+ and brave mode on the ESP. There is an initial hesitation when you start to move, something every tester pointed out about that Getrag twin-clutch transaxle, but once on the move the naturally aspirated motor has beautiful throttle responses. And, with 650Nm of torque, there are very few cars that steer on the throttle as the SLS does. You are practically sitting over the rear axle so every prod of the throttle results in an equal (and at times terrifying) reaction from under your bottom. Plus noise. Lots and lots of noise.

You can’t see it in the pic thanks to the plastic cover but the V8 in the GT S sits behind the front axle

The AMG GT, in contrast, is so much easier to drive fast right from the off. Where the SLS is hard and low, the GT is not-so-hard and not-so-low. The SLS skips and hops over small undulations meaning max attack requires maximum concentration; the GT is more composed. You can feel the dampers working over the bumps and you end up covering distance at a much faster clip, even terrible bumps struggling to throw the GT off-line. With the bonnet three inches shorter than its daddy the GT is much easier to place with accuracy. And there is much better body control, everything feels tighter and the nose feels so much keener to dart in to corners.

I later learn that it is down to the four hydraulic active mounts (Porsche has those for the engine; the GT has it for engine and transaxle). Apparently, as the car turns, the initial soft setting of the mounts tricks the nose into thinking it’s guiding a much lighter car. The nose thus turns with urgency, the dampers stiffen, and the engine follows a millisecond later. Sounds unnecessarily complex but behind the wheel the sensation is of one fluid movement. Compared to the SLS it makes the GT far more effortless. And ultimately, more rewarding.

The old beast has displacement on its side but is no quicker than the GT S

The GT, of course, is very closely related to the SLS. The layout is identical: big V8 mounted in the nose, yet way behind the front axle line to make it mid-front. A carbon torque tube sending all that power to the rear transaxle, and driving the rear wheels. Aluminium space frame with those same wide doorsills taken straight off the SLS Roadster. Aluminium double wishbone suspension and steering arms. The front axle and hydraulic steering straight out of the SLS. Think of the GT as a smaller, lighter, more compact SLS and you’d be on the money.

Thanks to the lighter engine and shorter nose the GT has better weight distribution, 47/53 front to rear. Despite being down on power (503 to the SLS’s 563bhp) it will do 0-100kmph in 3.8 seconds, same as the SLS. And to aid smoky drifts (that we were expressly instructed not to try since this is the Indian launch car) the GT S comes with an electronically controlled rear differential. But, compared to the SLS, there’s too much grip and precision for the GT to be an oversteering hooligan. It uses all that power to make shockingly fast progress. I expected the GT would be fast. I didn’t expect it to be so freakishly fast. There’s no question of the GT being a worthy successor to the SLS.

Those doors though! I admit I wasn’t the world’s greatest fan of the SLS but, today, it doesn’t matter that it lacks a bit of precision and finesse. Its calling card will always be the incredible sense of occasion. And of course when it clears its throat.