Horst Von Saurma lapped the SLS AMG on the Nordschelife at 7.40 On par with the same MY mk2 Porsche 997 GT3.

I think a lot of people are missing the point on what "overpowered for its chassis" means. The SLS has been discredited for being unwieldy in that essence. AMG is trying to undo this stigma and their closest will be their own developed chassis. Working with MB chassis' for standardly soft cars and turning them into high powered V8 TT scalpels is an almost impossible feat.

M has also had a hard time making the new BMW chassis' anything hearing scalpels, unfortunately. The new M3 is almost frightening in low end torque application and a drift machine. Fun, but very overmatched for its chassis.

CLA45 has always done better lap times than M235i, but it is also universally regarded as less precise and fun driven at 100% on the track than the M235i.

On the bright side, when driven at 8/10 on the twisties, the CLA45 is much more fun than the M235i, which is probably what the vast majority of the performance car buyers do anyway.

I suspect the same can be said about the SLS vs. 997 GT3, but here lies the different emphasis each brand has.

If they all drive alike, life would not be as interesting.

"SLS Discredited"? By whom? It did a 7:40 at the Ring...my brother has one which i have driven plenty enough to know, once again, you are a magazine racer with no practical experience. You want to drive an AMG like a hooligan? It will oblige. You want to drive it correctly? It will also oblige.

Look up nearly any test of the SLS against competitors and you'll see what we mean. Sure, it'll oblige, but when speaking relatively....

AMG has all but acknowledged this in their many uses in press tests of it being "a lot different than an SLS" in this regard.

Look up Top Gears "stupidest cars" or whatever their goofy little segment was, where James May was describing this very balance....

Oh I'll just find it and put it here. It takes more effort to perform like a scalpel, to say the least. Which is the entire point.

At the limit, yes. A limit that 99% of SLS owners will never see. I would love to hear your observations after driving it. You would poop your pants at 8/10ths for which it would be supremely capable and intoxicating. I believe Clarkson has one.

K-A clearly speaks from his deep personal knowledge Quoting mags/shows and echoing their opinions as fact isn't quite the same as owning one and having driven them extensively (in situations where one can judge the cars properly). By that I don't mean a test drive at the dealer...

Btw, Top Gear reflects opinions of several guys. The SLS is a love/hate car there. In the end, they rate the car a 9/10 (http://www.topgear.com/uk/mercedes-benz/sls) which is about as high of a ranking you see there.
That said, I can't judge that car either as I have only driven the roadster for a 20 mile run...was fun though

I have driven SLSs on the track at the Academy, very capable track car, although clearly has its distractions.

Can't wait to drive the new GT on the same track someday.

K-A will quote mags if he agrees with them, and call the mag reviewers crap if they don't agree with him.

Note the 7.40 time is from a Sport Auto Supertest. You need to add ca. 7 seconds to compare to a full lap.

AMG currently have a respectable 3 cars in the 50 fastest cars of the Supertest.

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/b...otoshow_item=4

I have not driven the SLS AMG, but I am a veteran of motorsport and the Nordschleife. In my experience, talented drivers nearly always like AMG cars.

Randy Pobst hot lap at Laguna Seca in SLS Black

Take it to the Isle of Man & see what happens. AMG cars in general overpower their chassis capability.

The Black Series is hardly a standard SLS lump. It is probably the most balanced AMG product built to date. I'm discounting the new GT because I have no real experience of it yet. Don't ever try & tell me that a W204 C63 is a well balanced car.

I would never try to convince someone a C63 is a balanced car, unhinged maybe......but i think that is part of its charm.

Yeah! What Adrian Newey calls "accessible fun" it loses it's composure so early.

Not surprising, the ability to tame the wild beast is a bragging right.

When going shotgun with a race car driver in an SLS, I noticed the extent to which an experienced driver tries to extract the very last second out of his lap time, can make for a super "violent" ride of a lifetime, nothing close to what was preached in the various classes for us novices.

So for the vast majority who will not step foot on a track ever, an AMG that is much easier to handle than the real AMG, could be very desirable.

Fellas. Simply put, the SLS is more powerful than its chassus can handle. Don't get in a fanboy tiff because I'm not saying it's a bad car. May is the one who called it "stupid".

And I've driven more powerful, and more balanced, and more scarily unbalanced cars.

Launch a 991 911 Turbo S, that'll make you "poop your pants", and at 2.5 seconds 0-60, it'll still find the chassis immaculately handling its output and swiveling around turns rather than fighting plunging around them. A GT3 even more so.

May should be followed in a grandpa and grandma discussion forum.

Fanboy is someone who blindly ignores any flaws and talks up his own model as a God sent, and most of us after reading A-K your posts got that feel.

In the above SLS discussion plenty was said about its untamed characteristics at the limit. No one was putting it on the pedestal like you did to your Macan.

Your scattered comments about the C450 were purely made to appear on topic so you could stay in the discussion, as such were hardly coherent.

Quit this discussion and go follow James May I suggest, you have had nothing to contribute here for quite awhile now, right after someone pointed out you drove a Macan.

Again with the Macan? Are you obsessed with it?

The discussion was about whether AMG power plants outmatch their chassis'. I don't think anyone would argue against this on a typically AMG-ified M-B chassis. And I think It's not inaccurate to state that the SLS is not an exception to this either, even being developed by AMG as a chassis, as it is echoed by many others to be true, even in this very thread.

I actually have driven an SLS on a track (during the time I had my most recent E Class), right before a Ferrari F430. However had to pull out of the SLS after one lap because the headroom was too atrocious for me, especially with a helmet. Ferrari not much better, but a bit. The SLS felt like a sharp muscle car to me, but the Ferrari far more balanced and literally wouldn't eek out a sense of incapability even when going wide open through pretty hard turns. While the SLS had to feel "leashed" more, the Ferrari kept handling speeds I was initially fearful of going into a turn, enhancing confidence. Both are RWD as well. The massive nose of an SLS is not a good element on a track, it's hard to gauge where it is, and it just feels unwieldy and yields a ponderous notion ahead of you, compared to something especially mid engine, with a more compact nose.

You had to pull out of SLS after one lap because your helmet could not fit, yet you had such a "sharp" feel about the car, very typical of your assessment pattern.

I have not heard people complain about helmet fit in SLS.

The point is, there are people who prefer to drive a car that is difficult to handle at the limit, because doing difficult things right provides a higher sense of achievement.

That is not being a fanboy.

Your only purpose here seems to **** your crap on all AMGs.

Now I cannot even mention the word "Macan" so you can distract people from your own fanboy mentality?

Yeah so anyways the C450 is not a poser for what it is...a sport model from the Mercedes-Benz side of the company, NOT the newly separated Mercedes-AMG brand. It will put the boots to the S4, as it is now, and be an overall better car than the 3 series equivalent.

Let's stay on topic and leave the SLS in its own forum and souped up Tiguans in the "General Talk" forum.

Then you agree with me about the SLS. Therefore your only purpose is to troll my posts? Yeah, sounds about right.

I'm tall, people who've followed me through forums know that it's the #1 issue for me with cars. 6'5 with long torso can't fit in an SLS at all (one of the worst headrooms for me) and with a helmet it was practically dangerous in how sunken down I had to sit.

Funny thing is I come here singing enthusiastic on the concept C450, I couldn't be more interested to check it out, yet you insist on devolving it into this. You drive a CLA45 which last I checked, isn't a C450 either, and is a vastly different type of Mercedes from the new C Class, so brand correlation doesn't say much.

I've never seen a souped up Tiguan, sounds interesting though.

You may be driving one right now, guess what he was saying.

That was a joke.

Your choice of word "fanboy" was uncalled for, yes I was after you on that word.

Yes if we can agree most AMGs are difficult to handle at the limit, then offering a easily tamed C450 AMG may just be what MB needs to attract those who might otherwise go to the competitors.

Wow, that went over my head (/sarc).

The Macan is as much a Tiguan as a CLA45 or C450 AMG is a Smart Car, or Mini Cooper is an M4.

That is, the correlation is nil. As in 0. As in only assumed by either someone who knows nothing about cars or trolls for O/T devolvings.

Here's another bit to you guys who keep dragging up O/T's. Just because I drive a car doesn't mean your fascination has to run SO thick that you bring it up in every convo! I don't know how an SLS translated into this from the two of you, but both of you seem to be unable to help from bringing it up and relate it to any completely irrelevant to it post that I make. It's like school children who can't keep their hands off of something no matter how many times you slap it away. Just because it's in my sig doesn't mean it's a topic for every conversation I'm in.