Mercedes Confirms New SL Will Replace GT

[Bobby Dazzler]

They call it the dialectic.....

I'm saying that the AMG isn't an SL - that two seater luxury grand touring cruiser that people will want to look great in and flaunt it about a bit.

With the exception of the original 1950's 300SL, the SportLeicht has always been a soft luxury convertible targetted at wealthy folk who want a comfortable, luxury tourer. Something to get Hart to Hart to their latest investigation, Bobby Ewing into Dallas, Princess Diana down to the Harbour Club, and to enable Colin Montgomery's wife to drive from Scotland to London in comfort for a weekend away.

The SL has never been something to kill a naive actor like James Dean or Paul Walker.

This group of people isn't in the slightest interested in 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, or race start launch controls. It's not what that client group does - at all. Look at the massive success of the Ferrari California: something like 8,000 units sold, well beyond exceptions and, TBH, sold in equal numbers to women as well as men. (Let's not ignore the elephant in the room)

The SL lost its way with the R231 and got thrashed by the Bentley Conti et al but this new car isn’t the way to recapture that sector. Think client, not track day.

Which is not to diss AMG in any way. It's a different sector. There's a role for an AMG Convertible to compete with a Porsche convertible, but that's not what the SL is about.


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I don’t disagree with much of the above, the SL has typically been more about luxury than performance, but what makes California right and new SL wrong?

Ignoring Rolls Royce I’m struggling to think of a luxury-first 2-seater or 2+2 which is on sale (new) today. No doubt there is one, but not many. Maybe DB11, maybe Continental GT, but both of those have a much stronger bias towards performance than their previous generations. It’s the way the market has been heading for a while.

I’m guessing that Mercedes have done their analysis and concluded that the market isn’t big enough for a luxury 4-seat convertible (S-Class), luxury 2-seat (or 2+2) convertible (SL-Class) and super sports car (GT Roadster, and decided that a mix of the three is the right approach for the next decade.

It would be interesting to see global sales figures for the S-Class, SL-Class and GT over time.

 

[Wolfie1]

I quite like the look of that merc, no pics with the roof up though……..

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

I quite like the look of that merc, no pics with the roof up though……..

Looks great with the roof up, take a look here:

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[Wolfie1]

Looks great with the roof up, take a look here:

Mercedes-Benz Media

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Wow it really does doesnt it!
The sad fact out of all this is with the onset of electric cars is they have gone all weird looking, so styling like this will probably never be done again