Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG

Anyone driving the SL65 for the first time will report back — probably with big eyes — that the thing accelerates as if it had a military ramjet in the back. But the real story with this car is that it is intended as a high-speed luxury convertible capable of hauling you and your luggage to your vacation home in comfort and relative quiet.
The thrust available from this 604-hp monster with 738 pound-feet of torque is its calling card, and it helps the SL65 keep up with nimbler cars in the mountains, where its 4480-pound weight starts working against it. The Benz isn't particularly ill-mannered in the hills, understand, it just won't be jammed into corners. Even with the active roll-control system switched to sport, the SL65's large mass produces understeer, and the driver is soon admonished by the electronic stability program (ESP) to back off. As boss Csere noted, the rule here is: slow in, fast out.
You can tighten the line during moderately fast cornering by simply giving the Benz some gas. Our editors quibbled about steering quality in this car, but most felt that although the effort was light, the mechanism produced accurate results. In character with the rest of the car, refinement takes precedence over involvement.
Nonetheless, the car's skidpad performance was respectable at 0.92 g, as was its lane-change speed of 69.1 mph — faster than the Porsche 911 Turbo S, despite the fact that the ESP cannot be disabled entirely. Or perhaps because of it. The integration of the various electronic systems has been meticulously engineered to save overly enthusiastic drivers from themselves.
The sound the V-12 makes as it comes on boost is an extraordinary blend of mechanical and pneumatic acoustics — a giant, percussive whoosh as the engine pins you back in your seat between 2000 rpm and the 6000 redline, in every gear. Check out the passing-acceleration figures. Even counting the downshift that greets a big prod at the pedal, a 2.3-second 50-to-70-mph time speaks of being able to pass anything, anytime.
Ironically, our acceleration results are slower than expected, even though the car meets the factory claims for 0-to-60 times. That may be due to the intense heat (over 90 degrees) at our desert test site, where repeated runs had the car's coolant gauge reaching the top of its scale, whereupon the engine computer cuts boost and probably retards ignition spark, too, for good measure. That slows the SL65 right down