The SL63 AMG is a very good looking car, pictures often don't do it justice.

BUT: After having another 500 km in this car this weekend, I found so many issues that I don't even know where to start.

Actually, these are not issues but question marks.

Let me explain: I started my first test-drive early this week with the preconception that this car is the SL successor and it is more of a comfy GT car rather than a true sports car.

Today, after driving almost 900 km in this car, I have to say that it is...neither fish nor meat as we say here.

This is actually more problematic than it sounds.

The quality on this car is not the quality of a 210k EUR (price of the car I test-drove). This is probably also the reason why demand started to drop...I guess.

By quality, I mean the overall quality of build materials, software, driving quality and many other things.

When I saw the quality of the sun visor, I had a shock: Cheapest plastic and no illumination. Compared to the sun visor of my son's 320d xDrive (G80) clearly a much inferior sun visor. This continues with many other things around the car, including the plastic look of the steering wheel airbag/honk cover and the lower side part of the seats.

It is nice to have a roadster...if the roof opens. Sometimes, the roof just doesn't open and there doesn't seem to be any reason why it doesn't. It just doesn't open. Never had issues with closing it, not even at the possible speed of up to 60 kph.

The iPad-like control display in the middle seems to be working nicely and it is bright and responsive. Sometimes however, the operation seems to have a minor lag. It doesn't happen often though.

The various driving modes are configurable but not to a point worthy a sports car. Not enough options in my opinion and even in Sport+ or Race mode, the car is not what I expect it to be from a true sports car. 

Still...the car is fast as hell, on straights and in curves. The reason is simple: The V8 engine pulls like hell and sounds amazing (even with the particulate filter installed, the US version sounds better though) and the massive torque gives you an incredible acceleration thrill when you accelerate up to 250 kph. Over 250 kph, the car pulls less hard.

In curves, the car feels lighter than it is or feels (on straights) due to the whole modern chassis tech and rear wheel steering. In fact, on a country road with lots of sharp curves, it felt much lighter and agile than it actually feels on straights on the Autobahn. Pretty weird driving feel. On the Autobahn, the car feels like a tank and on some curvy country roads like a true sports car, driving pretty much like on rails without zero side roll. Now comes the real shock: Even if the road is bad, the car rockets through the road and through curves as if the suspension floats above it. In Race mode (chassis in Sport+ mode), you basically cannot feel the bad road. Incredible chassis tech, Kudos zu Mercedes AMG. I guess the AMG engineers spent some time on US roads during development... Smiley

When driving in the proper gear and at the proper rev figure, the throttle response is amazing but I always need to downshift to achieve that, the gearbox doesn't downshift fast/often enough to achieve that automatically and this surprises me in an AMG. If I let the gearbox do it's automatic job and I floor the car, for example when I want to pass another car, the throttle response is miserable, there is a lag of around 2(!) seconds from downshift and the throttle picking up, building up a proper acceleration. Of course I am biased since I come from a Huracan Performante with an incredible responsive n/a V10 engine and fantastic DCT gearbox I shift manually but still... I don't get it, my former E63 S AMG seemed to be better in that domain.

Which brings me back to my initial point: The SL63 AMG can be an amazing sports car if you know how to downshift at the right moment and the chassis is a wonder of modern chassis tech, no doubt about it but you can feel the weight and the rear wheel steering working and while I love the steering feel, the car often feels heavy on straights, even if it is (and feels that way in sharp curves) very agile in reality.

I truly think that Mercedes and AMG couldn't decide what kind of car they want to make out of the new SL.
Mercedes wanted a successor to the old SL and AMG wanted a true sports car.

The result is a 210k EUR car which cannot really be either because it doesn't do anything perfectly in any domain.
Oh wait...the headlights are amazing, great light at night, no complaints here.

So why would someone pay 210k or more for a SL which doesn't do anything perfect? Good question.

I wouldn't. In my opinion, a sufficiently optioned SL63 AMG like the one I drove is worth around 160k EUR...maybe. Not 210k EUR, NO WAY. The quality just isn't always good enough and the car doesn't do anything perfectly in any domain, too many compromises and it feels that way.

Would I get one? In a heartbeat. For 160k EUR definitely a very fine AMG sports car which can be a lot of fun if you aren't thinking about track racing it or using it as a daily driver because the fuel consumption will kill you if you cannot control your throttle foot. I managed to get 20-21 liters / 100 km on average, mostly city, some Autobahn and country road driving. On the Autobahn, 26 liters are quite possible and I didn't drive it over 280 kph.

I managed to get 12.5 liters / 100 km driving the car in Comfort mode through the city and barely touching the throttle. So yes, you can drive it more efficiently but why would you want a V8 AMG engine for that?!

Driving it with an open top is a delight, especially when the weather is right. The sound of the exhaust/engine is so sexy and highly enjoyable but I am still disappointed that the EU SL doesn't get to sound the same as the V8 SL made for the US. Of course there are possibilities to change that without removing the particulate filter over here (which would be a serious issue with the law) but this would probably void the warranty.

We did some Dragy testing (12 satellites reception) and achieved with two persons in the car, full(!) tank, 0-100 kph in 3.53 seconds with launch control, 4.41 seconds without launch control, 100 to 200 kph in 7.81 seconds, 200 to 250 kph in 7.86 seconds. This is quite good for an almost 2 tons car with 585 hp. In the speed range 0-160 kph, the car pulls really incredibly fast, over 160 kph a bit less (still impressive) and over 250 kph, the strong pull disappears a little bit.

Then, there are the doors of this car: The door handles come out automatically but when you expect to open the door with pulling the door handle...nothing happens. Then, when you try again, not expecting anything again, the door suddenly opens on you quite easily. Very unusual and very annoying door opening behavior.

Also not a fan of that lag when you start from a stop without launch control. If you fully press the throttle, it takes around 2(!) seconds before the car starts to pull and another second to pull fully. Very annoying. Try the same in the Trackhawk and you get an EV-like throttle response behavior. The SL63 is using, according to my knowledge, "electric" turbo chargers, so they should work quite well but in reality, the car doesn't respond well to full throttle from a stop without launch control. I usually press the throttle to around 1/2 and then fully press the throttle to kick down and then it works quite well but it is very annoying. When the car starts to pick up speed, a Tesla 3 Performance will be already a couple of car lengths ahead of you, even if they basically have the same 0-100 kph acceleration time. Annoying.

This is the first time I can recommend or not recommend a car based on its REAL LIFE price tag. For the MSRP Mercedes is asking for this car, it isn't worth it in my opinion. For 50k less? Definitely a very nice car and you can even use it as a daily commuter or for vacation trips since you have enough luggage room behind the front seats.

So if you're looking for a daily driver or maybe weekend fun roadster which doesn't do anything perfectly, I can highly recommend the SL63...if you get it at a major discount. I would never buy it at over 200k. Never ever.

Same goes btw. to the current 992 Turbo S: Way too expensive in my opinion for the fun you get out of the car. I'd prefer a GT3 (Touring) for less money anytime. Just trying to explain my personal perspective.

The SL63 AMG can be a performance monster and a very comfy cruiser as well but like I said before, you need to accept lots of compromises. For a daily driver or weekend fun roadster, this can be a fun car to own but if you are into track driving or want a true sports car which can do everything well which it is supposed to do well, the SL 63 is wrong for you.

Even the massage seats aren't perfect: You can barely feel the massage. SmileySmiley The Urus massage seats are much better for example. Me and my son didn't want to turn them off when we arrived at our destination. Smiley

With the new AMG GT arriving and the (apparently) sharp decline in SL63 sales, I think that around the end of the year, there are some pretty good deals to be made for this car, maybe even now. 

The SL63 is a very nice looking car in real life, even more with the top down. It sounds really good and is fun to drive but do not expect too much from this car: It is neither a S class nor a Porsche 911. More like something between a E63 S AMG and a 911 Carrera GTS Cab. Perfect cruiser but not for over 200k. Just my personal opinion.

A last thought: With all that high-tech this car has, I wonder how maintenance and repairs will work after 5 years or longer. I can imagine that it could be a challenge at some point. Car is full of electronics, especially the chassis.

The Burmester sound system sounds nice btw., especially with the top up (which is good for such a car) but I would probably go for the fantastic 4D(?) system which is also available for over 4k EUR. Sound is incredible, we had the chance to listen to it in a customer car for a couple of minutes. Also, for a lot of Autobahn driving, I would recommend the ceramic brake. I drove around 10 min on the Autobahn and the steel brake started to judder. Smiley Didn't even drive over 280 kph and it wasn't hot outside, maybe 25°C. Otherwise I had no complaints with the brake but of course this is clearly no track car.


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RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Lamborghini Huracan Performante (2019), BMW Z4 M40i (2022), Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk (2019 EU)