My Life and Times

Harf Zimmerman

The Fast Lane: The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, for the driver who can't decide between a luxry sedan and a race car.

June 5, 2005
Speed Is of the Essence
By CHRISTOPHER S. STEWART
Ben Bradford is sitting behind the wheel of a half-million-dollar car on an old World War II airfield, about 40 miles outside of London. He smiles, but it's a sinister kind of smile. Bradford is a Mercedes service manager and an adrenaline junkie. The car is the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. With its long, black surfboard hood, scissor doors and rear spoiler, the carbon-fiber supercoupe looks a lot like a stealth fighter and feels as fast.

''You ready?'' Bradford asks and slams the accelerator. Tires squeal. In 3.8 seconds, we pass 60 m.p.h. In 11 seconds, we're doing 120, all 617 horses of the handmade V-8 engine cranking. No whistling or shaking. But the ride is loud and raw. At 150, the engine is a primal roar and my back is pressed flat against the black leather seat. At 175, the peripheral world blurs, and my lungs are in my throat. ''Easy, isn't it?'' Bradford shouts, his hands loose on the steering wheel, as the needle hits 180.

The SLR started as a pipe dream, just a long-shot ''vision'' car at the 1998 Frankfurt auto show. But when people started talking, Mercedes and McLaren, the world-champion Formula 1 race shop, responded. It was an unusual alliance. Mercedes revels in large, luxury ?bersedans; McLaren is wedded to stripped-down speed. There were delays, disagreements and tension over how it would look and what would go inside. Ron Dennis, C.E.O. of McLaren, compares the competitive relationship to two men at the reins of a chariot. ''It's complicated,'' he said. ''There was always a rivalry on how we could do things better.''

When car fanatics talk about the SLR, which was finally introduced in August 2004, they talk about performance, elegance, function -- and price. In terms of speed, the car is in the same league as the Ferrari Enzo and the Porsche Carrera GT. With its 5.4-liter supercharged V-8, which sits midship, and a completely flat underbelly with scalloped diffusers at the back to reduce air resistance, enhance road traction and generate down force, the SLR tops out at around 207 m.p.h.

But unlike traditional steet-legal racers, the SLR is loaded with creature comforts: air-conditioning, ventilated seats, automatic transmission, Bose stereo system and enough trunk space for a set of golf clubs. It also has fiber-reinforced ceramic brakes, three sets of air bags, a rear wing that pops up when braking at speeds above 40 m.p.h. and a front-end crash structure made of carbon fiber, which is half the weight of steel and four times as strong. And early next year, custom colors will be available.

The McLaren Technology Center, which produces its Formula 1 line and the SLR, is in Woking, England. The building, a low-slung curve of steel and glass, was designed by Norman Foster at a reported cost of $300 million. Dennis calls it ''his advertising budget'' and describes the environment as Zenlike. Inside, the ceramic-tile floors gleam; the space is both dustless and odorless. More than 10,000 lights illuminate the mostly white space, which is large enough to accommodate nine 747's. Of the thousand workers, 100 are devoted to cleaning jobs like scrubbing floors and polishing glass, and nearly every one of them wears a black Hugo Boss uniform, described by Dennis as ''the doctor look.''

Like a Savile Row suit, the SLR is almost completely hand-crafted. Only 12 people are qualified to build the engine, which is shipped from Germany and personally signed by the engineer. ''We're talking about a very human process,'' Dennis said. Even at full capacity, when all 85 SLR ''doctors'' are working, you can practically hear a spark plug drop. On average, the car takes about 400 hours to build, with two polished SLR's leaving the factory daily. Compare that with Mercedes's total production: mostly machine-made vehicles churned out at a rate of 3,416 a day.

Still, even if you have $452,750 to burn, only 3,500 SLR's will be made, and the 500 to be built in 2005 have already been sold. Dealers are rumored to be holding some for ransom. On eBay, prices are hundreds of thousands of dollars above sticker. At a Christie's auction in New York, in December 2003, the first SLR sold to a Long Island woman for $2.1 million, the most ever paid for a new car. ''Once you get into this category, it's more than a waiting list,'' said Bernie Glaser, who heads passenger-car product management for Mercedes USA. ''It has a lot to do with whom the dealer wants to sell to.''

Back at the airfield, we're doing 183 m.p.h. I'm driving now. Bradford is laughing as we zigzag, the tires gripping fiercely. We cut a turn at 95. Just as it seems as if we're going to lose control and scream off into the grass, the tires grab the road.

Down the last straightaway, windows down, scenery rushing past, engine roaring and stereo blasting ''Pour Some Sugar on Me,'' Bradford yells, ''Stomp on it.'' I hit the brakes. The spoiler brake pops. There's hardly a skid. In seconds, we're at a dead stop. Bradford has driven the SLR dozens of times but still acts as if it's his first. ''Amazing,'' he says.

Christopher S. Stewart has written for Wired, GQ and The New York Times.

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