Test drive Mercedes Benz Slr McLaren C199 2003 - 2007

The wings of joy

  Evil tongues said that Mercedes was tired. Like, it is already hard to give him cars, competitors from all sides are propagated, and what will you surprise the audience after Maybach? But it seems that all this is not true. Mercedes was just going to strength. To represent the serial Mercedes-Benz Slr McLaren.
Almost two years have passed since the Daimlerchrysler concern officially presented his Maybach superlimus. Owners of a representative car worth more than half a million dollars, as rightly believed in Stuttgart, will hardly often get behind the wheel. It’s somehow not necessary, because they can also take for a hired driver. Therefore, for more than three years, Mercedes-Benz has been engaged in the SLR project, which was no longer presented as a concept in the fall of last year, but as a serial machine.
The word supercar approaches Mercedes-Benz Slr McLaren without any stretch. Six hundred twenty -six horsepower. Carbon fiber body. A little less than four seconds - acceleration to a hundred. In ten and a little seconds, the shooter crosses two hundred kilometers per hour. For twenty with a tail - three hundred ...
TOURISM AND REST. The most amazing price in this car is not at all the price. Well, think, in Europe it will cost $ 450 thousand. There are cars more expensive. And not the volume of output - no more than 500 pieces per year. Only 3,500 copies in seven years of production, and not a single machine. The ratio of powerful and dynamic characteristics with the traditional luxury of expensive Mercedes is surprising for supercars.
 
 
Autopilot reporters have repeatedly sat behind real sports cars: those who participate in the World Rally Championship, and just such authoritative brands in this area as Lamborghini or Ferrari. Believe me, almost always where real power and speed begins, even elementary comfort ends. So, the owner of the combat Ferrari sits in a very uncomfortable chair for city trips, dragged on the most non -life with a four -point belt of safety. The door from the inside opens not an elegant handle, but with a primitive steel cable. Behind the driver’s head and back, he puffs with heat and roars only a motor slightly covered with a harmful asbestos. Transfigurations - only with the help of hard, if not oak, clutch, and only a pen. A half -hour trip on the city clogged by traffic jams does not cause any joy and, perhaps, with a hiking of five kilometers on a walk.
Romano-German. Mercedes Slr McLaren - completely different. He lets in himself habitually, as it should be just an expensive car, by pressing the button on the key fob. Only the doors do not open to the side, but up and sideways. However, in order to sit in a chair, we must contrive - painfully low. With the way out of the car, the problem will be in another: it is impossible not to touch the thresholds with your feet, and I immediately thought that on the Moscow mud you would stain all the pants. Although it is stupid to blame for this - tea was not for the inhabitants of Butovo.
The chairs are made of combat carbon fiber, but are still regulated by electric drives. In addition, when ordering a car from the owner, they will necessarily remove the measurement and select the seat and complexion. The driver also has at his disposal all the other achievements of the world auto industry: an automatic climatic installation, three pairs of airbags, one of which is addressed to the knees of riders, an audio system and navigation, which will not work in Butovo. There are also branded Mercedes electronic assisting systems: anti -locking for brakes, anti -circulation for the drive, and a global system for maintaining exchange rate stability - for everything and just in case. There is even an automatic box. In a word, he sat down and went.
The paradox is that all these, which are quite familiar to many machines, even more than a class, was supplied with an engine and a transmission, more inherent in racing devices. The double compartment created Mercedes-Benz together with another titled automaker-the British company McLaren, since 1995, cooperating with the Mercedes in the construction of pains for Formula 1. The British took over the development of a unique body with carbon fiber elements, which turned out to be thirty percent easier than traditional steel, as well as the assembly of SLR at a specially built McLaren plant in Vorking near London.
Arrows and targets. Almost every new car has its own beautiful legend. The coupe was created based on the legendary silver arrow of the 50s-Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. This compartment is often called by the name of his creator Rudolf Ulenhut, who has long been responsible for the sports programs of the brand for a long time. Traditions. History, nostalgia and everything is like that.
However, we dare to assume that there was a cold calculation. Maybe this: in two years it will hit ten years as the company cooperates with British McLaren. Yes, they won twice in a row in Formula 1, in the stages of 1998 and 1999, but who already remembers this? And a little earlier, McLaren engineers have already launched another car, which became the legendary car - McLaren F1 with a BMW production engine with a capacity of more than 400 horsepower. Prior to the end of the release in 1998, about one hundred cars were collected, each at a price of about $ 1 million, and the most famous accident was the incident with the then bmw chief by Berndn Pishtsrider, who broke the car into the trash, but neither he nor two passengers received a scratch.
The Mercedes, therefore, had a team that had not won the World Cup for a long time, was a partner who knew a lot about racing cars, and there was a concept that could be tried to implement in the series, Slr Vision.
Solo keyboards. In the design of this - we emphasize, road rather than racing - the car came up with many of the best developments of engineers who worked for the race for the whole conscious life.
To begin with, this is the first serial car with a carbon fiber carbon body type Monocock. Experience has shown that carbon fiber is five times better absorbing the energy of the blow in an accident than steel or aluminum. Therefore, in the case of a frontal clash, the front structures will take on all the energy of the blow, protecting the passenger capsule.
Another formula feature is combined brake discs. They are made of plastic, in which, as in a puff pie, ceramic elements are felled under high pressure. Thanks to the carbon base, the discs turned out to be much easier than ordinary, only thicker. Carbon is fragile in itself and is afraid of overheating, so ceramic inserts provide the entire design of the necessary strength. Disks are almost eternal. And in order to guarantee confident tearing from fantastic speeds, eight pistons were placed in the front caliper, six in the rear.
In the rear bridge, a differential of increased friction is installed - the norm for modern cars such as Gran Tourism. But the radiator of oil cooling also came to McLaren from big sport. In order not to boil and foam, because the load on the differential is huge.
The motor is all the same, 5.5-liter Mercedes V8. Only the shamans from AMG conjured him as many as 626 forces. The transmission is a 5-speed automatic, familiar from other AMG models. The driver can go both in comfortable mode and in sports or manual. In the latter case, you need to choose for yourself and install one of the transfers in the gear in the box. Officially, they are called Sport, Supersport and Race. But I would call them in Russian slow, medium and fast. By manipulating a special key, the driver can choose the speed of gearboxes for himself - from quick sports grasp to imitation, elusively slipping clutch.
 
 
AMG choir. Mercedes Slr McLaren sings on the highway. And on different voices. The first is the first to perform its batch, the sound of which changes depending on speed and load on the tachometer. Then the brakes come with their aria - the timbre of their voice changes depending on the temperature of the surface of the disks. The brakes quietly sings the anti -wing, accompanying itself on the waves of turbulent flows. And, like the choir of boys, the voices of the suspension constantly sound - the road plays on it, like on a xylophone.
McLaren should not wait for pity from the McLaren suspension. Nothing in common with comfortable S-Klasse or Maybach systems. It was created according to the sports scheme: two upper levers, two lower and shock absorber between them, which is located at a slightly large angle to the body than on ordinary cars. Such a layout does not guarantee comfort, and the car is noticeably shaking. But McLaren turns almost along an ideal trajectory, which we were convinced on the former formula highway near Yogansburg.
In a quarter of strength. When you control the SLR on a regular highway, there is a feeling that you were simply deceived. As a boy in the courtyard of the house was deceived by a neighbor-member, who arrived in the afternoon lunch: he put behind the wheel, but he did not allow the key to turn. The kid sits, biblizes aloud, jumps on the seat, and the car stands still ...
On the suburban tracks in the vicinity of Cape Town is a two -lane movement. Going through them by car, which is already at 150 km/h on one quarter of the gas pedal, there is a real mockery. I'm going. The sensations are dual: it seems convenient, but the brake pedal seemed to be a cast iron. However, what else should she be in a car with formula brakes, the task of which is to stop in the same seconds, at which he accelerated to the maximum 334 km/h? Before starting the test, we were generally advised to drive the pedal a couple of times at low speed - warm the brakes.
There is no desire to listen to the radio, smoking, or talking on the phone. Firstly, because the sound of the motor, which was developed by the engineers of the elite AMG unit, is a separate song, and secondly, smoking and chatting on the phone is simply uncomfortable-too close feedback from the road and steering allows you to constantly hold onto the wheel with both hands.
Okay, and how many accelerated? - the thoughtful and persistent reader will ask me. So, I accelerated, alas, only to 230 km/h, and then only for a few seconds. I did not want to go longer or more on public roads in South Africa, it was scary.
The struggle for the cup. If you have a desire and money to buy Mercedes-Benz Slr McLaren, it is very simple. In the Moscow Maybach Studio in a Big Horde, a special computer will introduce you to the equipment of the car, and also show samples of varnishes and skin. True, while Mercedes Slr McLaren is offered only two colors - silver or black.
The price of SLR in Europe begins from EUR 375 thousand. In Russia, after customs clearance, the current rate will turn out almost $ 700 thousand. The system of orders and sales is the same as in Maybach, that is, you must first declare your desire, wait Consideration of the application and, if the decision is positive, make an advance payment to EUR 50 thousand. According to the head of Daimlerchrysler in Russia Gerhard Hilgert, quota for the next year has already been selected for our country: three potential buyers have paid money. Their names, according to Mr. Hilgert, are well known to Mercedes. The autopilot is so far known only one-the owner of the first public Maybach and the head of the Russian standard Mr. Rustam Tariko.
As a reward for waiting, each potential owner of the SLR will receive a certificate in the form of a racing cup with an appropriate inscription. They can decorate a house or office. But the cars will have to wait until the beginning of 2005 - all 500 SLR planned for the next year are painted for buyers from the USA, Japan, Western Europe and the Arab countries.
Text Alexander Fedorov, photo of the author

Mercedes-Benz Slr McLaren

Working volume (cubic cub) 5439
Power (L.S. at about/min) 626 at 6500
Moment (Nm at rpm) 780 at 3250-5000
DISTORY DIRECTION DISTORY Rear 5-speed automatic with three-handed modes
Length/width/height 4656/1908/1261
Wheel base 2700
Fuel tank volume 97
Equipped mass/full 1768/1933
Maximum speed (km/h) 334
Acceleration to 100/200/300 km/h (sec) 3.8/10.6/28.8
Fuel consumption average (l/100 km) 14.8
Price in Moscow from $ 650,000

 

Source: "Autopilot"