Photo: Daimler
It's not a secret anymore that Daimler decided to keep its legendary roadster, the SL-Class, going with a new generation, despite sales not going particularly well for this type of vehicle.
With the growing effort behind its electric vehicle division, everyone would have understood if the German giant had decided to put an honorable end to its long-lasting legacy of building roadsters and focused on other types of vehicles that brought in more money. You know, your crossovers and SUVs. We wouldn't have liked it, but you can't like everything that life throws at you.
Well, a simple solution for Mercedes would have been to take one of its existing platforms, tweak it a little, throw a good-looking roadster body on it (they sure know how to make that), and call it the new SL-Class. Costs are kept down, the tradition is continued—everyone is happy, right?
Well, Mercedes-AMG wouldn't have been, because cutting corners like that with one of your most important all-time models is not how you build the brand image to the heights it is at right now. You do it by respecting your public and your legacy as well, and that's precisely what the company did with the new SL-Class.
We don't know that much about the upcoming model even though it's supposed to launch by the end of this year. Still, AMG did reveal one important—and very promising—detail about it today: the fact it will ride on a completely custom aluminum composite space frame developed from the ground up with the SL-Class in mind.
The company claims it used "a blank sheet of paper" in its development, meaning it doesn't borrow any parts from the current SL-Class or any other existing Mercedes-Benz or AMG model. It's clear that Daimler wants to make the new generation a much more significant vehicle in its lineup, and it sure seems as though it's going the right way about it so far.
We won't bore you with all the technical details concerning materials (aluminum, steel, magnesium, and fiber composites), the way those materials are obtained (cast aluminum plays an important role), or how everything is held together (MIG welding, laser welding, punch riveting, blind riveting, MIG soldering, glued seams, and flow hole bolts). Still, we will tell you what the end result is: a frame that weighs 573 lbs (260 kg), has an 18 percent better torsional stiffness compared to the current SL, a 50 percent increase in transverse rigidity compared to the AMG GT Roadster, while the longitudinal rigidity is 40 percent higher.
The press release includes a lot of technical jargon—some of which we copy/pasted in the paragraph above. It also puts beyond any doubt something we all suspected was going to happen: the fact that the upcoming Mercedes-AMG SL-Class will feature hybrid powertrains. When speaking about the complexity of the task, Daimler mentions "the potential to accommodate a wide range of drive systems." Does that mean we can expect 800 horsepower on a vehicle whose name, SL, stands for "Sport" and "Light"? Well, they should have opened with that.
Well, a simple solution for Mercedes would have been to take one of its existing platforms, tweak it a little, throw a good-looking roadster body on it (they sure know how to make that), and call it the new SL-Class. Costs are kept down, the tradition is continued—everyone is happy, right?
Well, Mercedes-AMG wouldn't have been, because cutting corners like that with one of your most important all-time models is not how you build the brand image to the heights it is at right now. You do it by respecting your public and your legacy as well, and that's precisely what the company did with the new SL-Class.
We don't know that much about the upcoming model even though it's supposed to launch by the end of this year. Still, AMG did reveal one important—and very promising—detail about it today: the fact it will ride on a completely custom aluminum composite space frame developed from the ground up with the SL-Class in mind.
The company claims it used "a blank sheet of paper" in its development, meaning it doesn't borrow any parts from the current SL-Class or any other existing Mercedes-Benz or AMG model. It's clear that Daimler wants to make the new generation a much more significant vehicle in its lineup, and it sure seems as though it's going the right way about it so far.
We won't bore you with all the technical details concerning materials (aluminum, steel, magnesium, and fiber composites), the way those materials are obtained (cast aluminum plays an important role), or how everything is held together (MIG welding, laser welding, punch riveting, blind riveting, MIG soldering, glued seams, and flow hole bolts). Still, we will tell you what the end result is: a frame that weighs 573 lbs (260 kg), has an 18 percent better torsional stiffness compared to the current SL, a 50 percent increase in transverse rigidity compared to the AMG GT Roadster, while the longitudinal rigidity is 40 percent higher.
The press release includes a lot of technical jargon—some of which we copy/pasted in the paragraph above. It also puts beyond any doubt something we all suspected was going to happen: the fact that the upcoming Mercedes-AMG SL-Class will feature hybrid powertrains. When speaking about the complexity of the task, Daimler mentions "the potential to accommodate a wide range of drive systems." Does that mean we can expect 800 horsepower on a vehicle whose name, SL, stands for "Sport" and "Light"? Well, they should have opened with that.
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