Mercedes-AMG Engineers, Designs, And Builds The New SL: An Icon Reborn

For the first time since fully absorbing legendary tuner AMG in 2005, Mercedes-Benz has granted the speed merchants of Affalterbach “blank sheet” autonomy to develop a new car from the tire treads up, including all aspects of body and chassis architecture. The resulting 2+2 convertible, the SL63, is the finest Gentleman’s Sports-Tourer we’ve seen out of Germany in many decades.

The AMG GT Black Series and AMG One hypercar remain the ultimate and most radical expressions of Mercedes road car performance, sure. But along with the S-class sedan, the SL has defined much about Mercedes-Benz in popular culture since the 1950s, when the earliest racing versions won at Le Mans and the Carrera Panamericana. The SL has been cast in film and television starring roles ever since. No small endorsement that the first fully AMG-developed car to wear the Mercedes star is the crown jewel.

Bodywork draped over the SL’s alloy spaceframe is in the best German tradition, flowing curves with sharply radiused character lines adding tension. The short rear deck and fenders are downright voluptuous.

In profile, SL is a subtle wedge with a long, proud hood. Nothing brutish, boxy, or disproportionate. It resembles that ideal stone you pick up while walking along the shore, hook its polished surface inside a curved index finger and then skip artfully across a mill pond.

Aero is for the most part hidden or gracefully integrated into the whole, with subtle vents, intakes, splitter, diffuser, and active rear spoiler. Top down, the high rear cowl ensures little to no aero backspill into the cockpit, allowing conversation with just the slightest extra effort required from the speaker’s diaphragm—no need to yell.

HVAC set to high and steering wheel heater transferring warmth to fingers and palms, pre-dawn chill in the 30s was no problem, with just a flutter of cold air tugging the scalp. A warm bubble, greatly appreciated after scurrying around snapping these photos.

Top down in that warm bubble, the engine’s upper intake sings top tenor above the exhaust’s bass-baritone, sonorous and stirring. The twin-turbo V8 produces 577 horsepower and a whopping 590 lb.-ft. of torque between 2500-5000 rpm—never out of oomph, never flat-footed. Sounds are not the raucous videogame soundtrack one finds in entry-level mid-engine supercars working so hard to impress.

SL delivers acceleration no supercar could have touched when I started in the business decades ago, and only a handful of truly exotic mid-engine supercars of 2022 can best. Put your boot in it to triple digits and SL63 delivers a civilized supercar symphony worthy of Ludwig. SL63 is a jolly, joyous little craft that delivers a blend of speed, sound, and sensation like no other car.

AMG has been turning out hand-built engines for years, fulfilling its original role as in-house tuner for Mercedes, adding performance capability to existing production cars. Every AMG high-output engine is hand-assembled, beginning to end, by one builder who scribes his signature on an alloy badge that sits atop his masterwork.

Power flows through an AMG-calibrated 9-speed transmission, then on to the all-wheel drive system. As expected, there’s a full range of calibrations for suspension and powertrain. Around my native Los Angeles, the soft suspension setting worked well over our horrendously maintained roads, with the sharper powertrain settings adding cut and thrust in traffic.

For the first time in an SL, we have all-wheel drive. AMG’s variable system delivers power to the front wheels when required, to sharpen cornering and put power down efficiently.

In SL63, the suspension system is also of AMG conception. Instead of metal mechanical anti-roll bars, a hydraulic system controls body roll in corners. Suspension is multi-link front and rear. The rear-wheel steering helps low-speed parking maneuvers, tightening the turning circle.

Could AMG later develop a Black Series version of SL for that most dedicated breed of speed assassins? An SL72 with 720 horsepower? Certainly, the AMG pieces and scripting all exist as a starting point.

But SL63 is such a perfect balance of easy performance and understated elegance that it seems the best possible candidate for a multi-generational one-family ownership, one of those rare cars you just don’t trade out of the fleet to buy the latest shiny bauble. SL63 is no different than the 1950s 300SL roadsters or 1960s Pagoda roof 280SLs that turn up at auctions with a one-family patina, great-grandpapa’s favorite that sat in the barn at the second home for years. Mercedes-AMG SL63 is one to keep.