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We have just nudged an indicated 300km/h - that's 186mph - on the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren's luminous speedometer. Should I keep my right foot planted? It's tempting, because the acceleration shows no sign of abating; the talk is that someone else has seen 340km/h today, which is 211mph. And surely the speedo of a car with such a distinguished engineering pedigree must be reasonably accurate...
'Comfortably over 200mph'. That's all the SLR project people will say at the moment, not least because the final certification isn't complete. Anyway, the straight of the test track near Barcelona is running out, the car in front is getting close and there's a banked bend to tackle. 'You shouldn't go round the banking at more than 200km/h in lane four,' the test track woman said earlier, 'otherwise you'll drift up into lane five, which we don't have.''
But then we weren't supposed to drive faster than 250km/h or 155mph on the straight, either, because Michelin hasn't yet approved its new SLR tyres for higher speeds and, besides, the track is baking hot. Not to worry; it felt fine on the banking at 230km/h.
This is one potent car. Its creators still won't say what their acceleration target times were, but the SLR is apparently whole seconds ahead of the estimate for the 0-100mph run. Nor will they be pinned down on the power ('over 600bhp') and torque ('700 to 800Nm' - or between 516 and 590lb ft).
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