jrcart

Thanks everyone. I have put about 100 (hard) miles on the car in the past couple days. Here are some of my initial impressions.

Interior quality, materials fit and finish is FAR superior to my CLK BS, with the exception of the rear seat delete, it looks like an afterthought in the C BS, the CLK's rear seat delete is of much higher quality and athetically more appealing. Alcantara steering wheel, alcantara door panels and seat inserts. Red stiching over black leather and alcantara is beautiful.

Exterior fit and finish is not all that great, rocker panel fit is terrible along the seam in the door sill and along back of the doors.

Exterior CF quality, hands down the nices quality CF I have ever seen on a production car, better than CLK CF IMO.

Multi-Medi Navi.....awesome! light years ahead of the CLK BS stuff. The amount of data available is mind boggling. The voice activated cammand system is the best I have ever used, gets what I am saying first time every time and there is less than a second delay from the time I say command til it activates my command.

C mode, S mode, S Plus mode and RS (race start launch control). Too many choices IMO, S mode is a waste. S Plus is just sick, noticible higher faster revs and a sick sound that comes out of the exhaust at WOT at top of RPM band at time of shift, this is the computer dumping extra fuel at time of shift, a loud growling gurrgle is the best way to describe it. RS Race start, simply awesome, depress brake, turn dial to RS, floor accelerator, listen to car hit a little rev limiter at 3600 RPM, let foot off the brake and hang on.

Handing, I ordered the optional track pack and the aero pack, track pack comes with R compound Dunlops with an 80 treadwear rating to give you an idea of how soft they are. I took car over to a nearly empty industrial park with lots of twisties and I drove the car at about 80% which is enough to get it loose but still be somewhat safe. Car tracks well, steering is much more precise than CLK, azz-end is not nearly as tail happy as CLK was (in stock form), car likes to slide (4 wheel drift) and is completely managable when unglued from the pavement (at least at 80% it is).

Brakes feel just like the CLK. I wish they put 2-piece rotors on the rear of this thing, that will be on my list of early mods just to free up some rotating mass. I am also looking into carbon brakes but that will be a winter project.

Other areas of interest. There is actually a battery jumper terminal under the hood, no more disasembling the back seat area to get to the battery terminals. Paddle shifting both upshifts and down shifts are a little quicker (less delay) than the CLK. matched rev downshifs in S Plus are insane.


I will be taking it out to both a road course (Autobahn CC) and a drag strip in the next week or two, I will report back after that with more feedback and impressions.


....incase any of you are wondering, the car feels SLOW compared to the 1000 hp my CLK is making, the first time I stabbed the throttle I honestly thought something was wrong with it LOL.

jrcart

Sleek

MACHC5

Jim -
Thanks for the Update...

MercedesFTW

Amazing. Congrats!

I'm visiting my friend out in Naperville soon, maybe I'll see you driving that beast around!

vdubpower

1000 hp well yeah it should feel slower. It only has half the power. It's like comparing a c250 to the Amg ..
What else did you do to get 1000 besides the sc

We need pics of the two together

Maverick1975

Sorry for thread jack Jim, but I will have some side by side picks when I pick mine up on Saturday morning, can't wait!

jrcart

Ya, I am actually going to get a professional photo shoot of both Black Series put together here soon....maybe even splurge and hire a top heavy models or two for the shoot.

Kevwood

I'll toss in a dollar to help sponsor this event...

mellowyellow

Excellent color to showcase the CF bits (plus I am little biased).

After seeing the adjustable spoiler in person on another C BS, I'd have no reservations with getting one like it (some people thought it was a little over the top / too big). It looks awesome.

gestut

congrats Jim, use it in good health, I would like to check it out though

Premier Films

Beautiful car Jrcart. Mods planned for it to catch up to the CLK?

Meeyatch1

Actually....I would let the cars speak for themselves. Throwing some girls on the car will just cheapen the photos.

Jeff M

Excellent detailed review. Always look forward to your honest and frank assessment on such matters.

Sounds as though its more ready out of the gate for tracking than the CLK-BS. Little less prone to slide out the backend will make tracking more realistic then the too-much-fun *** end of the CLK-BS (though I love how easy, and effortlessly you can do this daily driving).

The white color is shockingly bad looking, and with all the luscious carbon fiber bits, as well the wing that I always felt fit in well with the looks of this car’s design. It is gorgeous!

Sorry to post this here, but just in case it did not show up when looking the engine bay over, and if you would still like to have access to the Battery Positive connection via the engine bay, give these a look in your CLK-BS:






Enjoy, and looking forward to any updates, and mods

jrcart

I honestly never knew the battery terminal was up ther LOL. WOW, I feel like an idiot LOL

Jeff M

No problem, sheet-happens, and that's why they call it "sheet" . Just glad I could help out. At least our buried battery requires no water adding maintenance, AGM type that has some serious specs. I also confirmed this connection by chasing the cables there, and they do indeed come from the battery main feed cable, and is where I plug in my battery charger over the winter.

Back on topic, and I too vote for a hot model pro shoot of your twins .

GrnLantern

Late to the party (don't usually frequent the CLK subforum), but congrats! And thanks for the write-up, as well.

You definitely ordered your BS as I would've. I wish more folks did, if so, I'd probably have grabbed one pre-owned by now.