SL1200MK4

First of all, this post is not a troll. This is a serious and legitimate concern.

In the case of a rollover accident and the SLS is upside down. How will the driver and passenger be able to get out? I have seen an armored SUV with blow-off doors. Safety had always been a priority with Mercedes, do they have a solution to this?

Even since I saw the extremely graphic photos from the Murcielago accident in Czech Republic, I have second thoughts about these unconventional door designs. In that accident two were killed and the passenger was burned to death trying to escape from the vehicle.

Granted, the chance of that happening is extremely small. You would have to be involved in a rollover accident and have your car catch on fire. This certainly is not a deal breaker for me, but a piece of mind would be nice.

bigben320e

Interesting thought.

laneshift

Maybe MB has implemented something similar to what you stated, blow-off doors? Or when the car "senses" a crash, the latches will release and the door will be easily removed?

jmf003

"The gullwing doors will pop off in the event of a rollover to allow occupants to escape."

From: http://blog.caranddriver.com/2011-me...otos-and-info/

SL1200MK4

Thanks for the quick reply. It would be nice to have more details on that feature. I am sure that will eventually surface on the Internet.

I am assuming that SLR doesn't have this feature, but its door design should also suffer from the same problem.

James Nevin

I was just at Laguna Seca Monday last and had a wonderful opportunity to spend a day in the car both on the track and in motorcross. The 16 cars are by now on a ship back to Germany where they will be broken down and analysed.

There are two hinges per door and a pyrotechnic charge integral in each hinge. They are designed to blow in a flip over and the doors can be pushed out from inside or pulled from the outside--Less than 50 lb per door as I recall.

I saw the internal mechanism in the hinges at a breakdown display --Very ingenious.

JP

WSH

Very legit concern; I'm not convinced gimmickry of gullwings justifies inevitably elevated safety risks

As mentioned, theoretically, explosive devices unlock and "pop" doors in rollover

IIRC, there's a youtube video of this feature in AMG crash testing

Other things to consider are limited headroom of SLS esp if roof crumples in rollover; close placement of fuel tank vs passenger cell (esp if rear-ended); and likely slow-to-develop real-world crash data and debugging of SLS safety systems given its new body, limited sales vols and (often) garage queen "use"

From what I've read so far, I have no doubt SLS will be far safer than any new F; prob less safe than a 997GT2 or 997GT3 v2.0 though...and lacks advanced AMG active safety stuff like BrakeAssistPlus, PreSafe coupled to DistPlus (unlike S/CL)

SL1200MK4

Thanks, very useful info. I got a pretty good idea as to how that system will function, now. Pretty much the same as the system I saw in the armored car.

QuadBenz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCNxp...layer_embedded

SL1200MK4

Are we talking about Ferraris here? My impression is that modem F cars (360 and onward) perform reasonably well in crashes. Can you elaborate on this or do you have a story to share? There are a few spontaneously combustion incidents involving F cars, but that happened to Gallardo a few times as well.

I have to admit that while I have serious concerns about the Gullwing door design, it is also what attracted me to the SLS. Especially when the engine is shared with so many Mercedes models from C63 to CL63, a minus in the exotic and exclusive department for me.

WSH

Examine the fuel tank location of Scud, esp fuel lines vs hot engine components (and passenger cell) in any crash...a classic risk in nearly any mid-engine configuration

Consider that MY09 Scud and 612 (a 4300+lb alleged commuter car) lack head/side airbags (BTW as does 4300lb Veyron)

Read up on F's safety engineering logic on any of their web sites, etc; funny how it's not a topic much discussed....as opposed to AMG, which in great detail explains their safety R&D: CAD/CAM virtual crash simulations, choice of ultra-high-strength steels, PreSafe, etc etc

Am not an engineer but as a financier, always carefully analyze risk vs reward....can lose a lot of money on a bad financial bet and earn it back (and learn from errors in judgment); but no amount of money will ever buy back one's lost health or physical/mental abilities post-collision injuries

Need to apply intense risk/reward judgment in one's choice of car and own driving style....no virtual crash simulation or NCAP/IIHS, etc crash test will ever accurately reflect real-world active and passive safety risks (much like how fancy financial risk models fooled many morons in '08), where common sense engineering risk judgments (of shrewd customers) prevail vs any theoretic claims of safety....and let's not forget that most of world's smartest, wealthiest, risk/reward-oriented engineers are SiliconValley centimillionaires/billionaires, not worker bees in the low-income auto industry of Germany or Italy

MAN1

The doors come off the hinges. Go to 2:30 on this video. They do a rollover test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCNxp...om=PL&index=50

fdngyafas

Other things to consider are limited headroom of SLS esp if roof crumples in rollover; close placement of fuel tank vs passenger cell (esp if rear-ended); and likely slow-to-develop real-world crash data and debugging of SLS safety systems given its new body, limited sales vols and (often) garage queen "use"

SL1200MK4

This is a refreshing view.

While I am not sure if this is true, I all of a sudden got the impression that these Italian exotics are not so safe after all. Or at least something like the Subaru WRX STi would be safer? It might be ugly, it might have a bad boy racer image, but at least it performed well in crash tests and real world crashes.

Still I think that the initial reward of owning an exotic, especially at the emotional level justifies the risk. Probably will get tired of it in a year or so. I just hope that the depreciation is not too bad with the SLS.

tusabes

then lease it and decide at the end whether to exercise the option to buy.

Have you seen depreciation on an SLR? $100k/year in the 1st 2 years. And people seem to like the SLR styling more than the mixed reaction to SLS.

No reason to think SLS depreciation will be proportionately better

Ferri

The SLR depreciated that much because it was way overpriced to start with.