2012 mercedes-benz sls amg roadster Review

The 2012 mercedes-benz sls amg roadster evening before Mercedes-Benz's public relations department flew us from Frankfurt, Germany -- where we'd seen the 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG roadster make its official debut at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show to the South of France to drive the car, they took us to dinner. It was July 2007, and it was to drive the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren roadster.

The 2012 mercedes-benz sls amg roadster as you might recall, cost a half-million dollars, even more than the SLR McLaren coupe that it followed. Mercedes, for its part, turned its attention to re-creating its legendary gulling sports car. More important, the SLS AMG roadster costs about $200,000, or some 60 percent less than the SLR McLaren roadster that was not nearly as good a car. Now, that's what we call progress: for the price of an SLR McLaren roadster, you could buy two SLS AMG roadsters plus an SLK55 AMG! As for Villa Rothschild Kaminski.

 The 2012 mercedes-benz sls amg roadster on the shorefront of Cap daily, adjacent to Monaco, was breathtaking. We could choose among SLS AMGs in bright Le Mans red, cool mystic white, brooding obsidian black, and traditional Iola gray. We drove a white car with red interior first, and a red car over cream and black later, but we also spent a lot of time drooling over the cars slathered in seeping brown paint, a new hue for AMG, which basically looked good enough to eat.
The SLS makes convertible life easy.

The SLR McLaren had a supercharged 5.4-liter SOHC V-8, and with its 617 hp and 580 lb-ft of torque, it was a great beast of a power train, yet we've never pined for it when we've driven the new SLS AMG coupe or roadster. The SLR McLaren made do with a conventional five-speed torque-converter automatic transmission, while the SLS AMG roadster, of course, has the same seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, in transaxle configuration, as the coupe. On the road, the SLS AMG roadster gives up virtually nothing to the coupe. As with the coupe, the roadster's body panels are aluminum.

This car feels tight. AMG Performance Media, a new feature that will also make its way into the SLS coupe, allows you to dial in a variety of telemetric displays on the navigation screen such as lateral and linear acceleration, fluid temperatures, braking performance, and engine output. Electronic playthings aside, the SLS AMG roadster emerges as a serious, open-air grand touring machine. Aside from those quibbles, the only dilemma the SLS AMG roadster presents is one of haberdashery: what color, what leather, what trim would you like.

Sitting in a villa a stone's throw from Monaco, I sent one last message into the Internet ether, tweeting, Time to drive the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster. Mercedes-Benz, or more specifically, in-house tuner-turned-car-builder AMG, hasn't done me many favors, either. The SLS AMG Roadster, despite its absent-on-demand roof, is about as easy to see out of as a pet carrier. To me, the SLS AMG was always a ridiculous car, and I loved it for that. The three-mile-long hood, the mile-wide stance.

the monstrous engine, and those silly doors. Left in Controlled Efficiency mode, throttle response is slow and progressive and the transmission shifts gently as you rumble past the casino. Switched to Sport, the throttle map is more aggressive and gears are held longer. The other favor granted me was a big one: AMG's new optional Ride Control suspension. At its launch, the SLS coupe had just one suspension tune: hard. To give the desired performance, the all-mechanical suspension was stiffly sprung and the ride quality suffered for it, an understandable compromise in a true sports car. But as we recently found in our Best Driver's Car competition,

the SLS AMG works better as a super-powered touring car able to leap entire continents in a single bound. Appreciating that their SLS customers are more grand toilers than DTM drivers, AMG has fitted electronically controlled dampeners as options with three settings, Comfort, Sport, and Sport Plus. The SLS AMG bears this out, and the system will be available on both coupe and Roadster for 2012.

The haws and whys of it are mostly academic, though, as AMG boldly claims that the SLS AMG Roadster is just as good at the track as the gulling. Like the SLK Roadster, you'll find the control in the center armrest. Indulge it with an open road and the sound turns to full-fledged DTM car as the rev counter swings towards redline.

Really, if you can afford this car, you can afford the brakes. Spin it or save it, you'll be able to tell your friends all about it in great detail later on, because the SLS AMG Roadster is the first AMG car to come with the company's new optional Performance Media system. The system will soon be rolled out to all AMG cars and the data recorded can be downloaded to a USB stick and transferred to your personal computer. The SLS AMG Roadster, as you'd expect, isn't much different than the gulling coupe.
Mercedes-Benz takes the top off the SLS and lets the sun shine in. The same great drive train and suspension is now topped with a fully automatic retractable canvas roof with solid rear glass. Total weight increase for the roadster version was only 88 pounds. What is it like to drive?
After careful consideration you might find the SLS Roadster on top of the list.
The power train is unchanged from the coupe. In the city and along the beaches of the Cote dasyure with the top down, the SLS Roadster was perfect for communing with the beach community. The SLS behaves perfectly smoothly in stop-and-go traffic and could easily function as a daily driver. We never got into any trouble despite roads that would eat lesser cars for lunch..