2023 Mercedes-AMG SL 55 4Matic+ review: Seven figures for the road

Well they’ve gone and done it. With the increase in ARF taxes earlier this year, mid and upper-tier luxury car prices in Singapore have really gone through the roof. The Mercedes-AMG SL 55, like the new BMW XM hybrid SUV, have both slammed through the one-million dollar price ceiling.

The former is a properly serious performance car designed for dynamic driving with a manic engine under the bonnet, while the latter is always just a bog-standard Mercedes-Benz with a bolt-on bodykit and fancy wheels. They just look fancy, but AMG Line parts do not make your Mercedes-Benz a sports car the way a real AMG car always is.

The other bits of tech worth mentioning include its four-wheel steering system, ride control adaptive suspension system, Airpanel automatic inlet closure, and active aerodynamics. The interior is all top-spec AMG stuff, with massage seats, a Burmester audio system, and perfect stitching in all directions. A feature that's unique to the SL for now is the electronically tiltable main display screen, designed so that sun glare can be eliminated when driving with the roof down.

What it lacks in cabin razzmatazz however, it makes up for in its excellent sense of occasion when the car gets driven.A nine-speed automatic transmission joins the engine to the car's four wheels, but what's different is that rather than using a torque converter to connect the engine to the gearbox, which always results in a small amount of transmission power loss, the SL 55 uses a wet clutch system for a more direct connection.

It consists of two sections that close up the big front air intake with louvres, designed to help push airflow under and around the car to reduce front end lift at high speeds. The upper section opens when the radiators need extra airflow for cooling, and the second, lower one only opens up at higher speeds.

In our 24 hours with the car, we'll state that we never got the rear spoiler to pop up even at the highest legal highway speed, likely because the car knew it was being driven on a highway and was aiming to optimise straight line efficiency.

Source: Car News Wire (carnewswire.net)

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