 |
That will be a comforting thought when I first slip into the red leather driving seat of silver SLR prototype number MP3. Before that, though, there's the exterior to drool over. My first view of the SLR is through the door of the test track's workshop, head-on front, that low, pointed nose with Alfa-style offset number plate flanked by the giant ears formed by the upwards-and-outwards-opening doors. Behind the front wheels are giant air-exit vents like those of a Gullwing SL, below these vents are a pair, on each side, of exhaust pipes echoing those of the SLR race car in which Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson won the 1955 Mille Miglia.
 |
Are these pipes legal? Apparently so; they are among the many changes made to the SLR design since the Vision SLR concept car. Every panel is slightly different, and the tail is much higher for aerodynamic reasons. The styling is very obviously Mercedes-led with strong SL connotations, but the zebra-stripes of camouflage hide the impact while these prototypes finish their development. September's Frankfurt show will reveal the finished article, and the first production car will leave the McLaren factory in Woking at the turn of the year.
This prototype has 18-inch wheels shod with 245/40 front tyres and 295/35 rears. They're a five-spoke design and the lightest of the three options, the others being 10-spoke 18-inchers and 11-spoke 19-inch items. All are by OZ and, perhaps surprisingly, Michelin's 19-inch tyre gives the best wet grip. "We've just finished developing it," says Chris Goodwin, McLaren's chief tester, "along with the final steering calibrations."
He explains what a joy it is to work with such a stiff structure: "You can feel a 2Nm change in spring rates straight away, while in a normal car you could change the rate by 20Nm and not notice." He's covered 10,000km around the Nurburgring's Nordschleife (north loop), and had a lot of fun running with the Porsche Carrera GTs being tested at the same time. The two cars proved to have similar lap times, but when conditions turned bad the SLRs were quicker. "Even Walter Rohrl says the Carrera GT is hard to drive," Goodwin chuckles, "and they wrote off two."
|
