At the 2010 Los Angeles motor show AMG boss Ola Kaellenius announced that his Mercedes tuning division would release two very special Black Series cars in the near future. We’ve already seen one, the £100k and 510bhp C63 AMG Coupe Black Series, and now our spies in Germany have spotted the second one…
It’s the Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series, a harder, lighter, faster version of the Gullwing supercar. It’s the most extreme Black Series variant yet, but with a naturally aspirated 6.2-litre V8 it won’t be the most powerful; that title is still held by the SL65 AMG Black Series, whose twin-turbo 6.0 V12 produced 670bhp.
Just 350 SL Blacks were ever built (and only nine came to the UK) so expect a similarly exclusive production run for the SLS Black. Expect to pay at least £300k for an SLS Black.
So what do we know about the Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series?
The new bodywork is most obvious, with flared fenders front and rear shrouding wider front and rear tracks, upgraded brakes, and bigger wheels fitted with track-orientated rubber. The cladding at the front also disguises the new bumper, which will sport the familiar Black Series family face – i.e. three whopping great big intakes to feed cooling air into the upgraded engine.
We’re still digging a few more details out of our contacts and sources, but we expect the SLS Black Series to stick with the naturally aspirated 6.2-litre V8. However, power should go up from 563bhp to over 600bhp. Up to 650bhp has been speculated…
There will other tweaks too. Carbonfibre bodywork should cut weight, as will carbon interior trimmings and lightweight carbon bucket seats. A rollcage could be offered as an option, but it’s not yet clear whether a carbon rear wing, front aero ‘flics’ and semi-slick tyres will be offered as options – such upgrades are available on the C63 Black Series.
Anything else?
Yes. As the SLS Black Series prototype pulls back into Merc’s Nürburgring facility a few other AMG products are dotted around the car park. There’s an SLK55 AMG, a C63 Black Series, and a new-shape ML SUV sporting a set of quad pipes. That’ll be the ML63 then, which uses AMG’s latest twin-turbo 5.5-litre V8.
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