Gullwing Mercedes flying off the shelf

The rabid response to the Mercedes Benz SLS AMG is raising hopes the car will lure NZ buyers away from other luxury marques like Ferrari and Aston Martin. Photo / Supplied

The Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the first vehicle developed entirely in-house in the 40-year history of the German carmaker and its performance arm, will cost $450,000 when it lands in New Zealand in a few months.

Eight cars will be built in 2010 for this market - and all have buyers' names on them. The first SLS will arrive in August/September.

"We expect four or five out of the eight to go into the hands of owners this year," says Mercedes-Benz national sales manager Shae Wright. "The remainder will be built later in the year and arrive here early in 2011."

Wright says only eight cars were allocated to New Zealand for 2010. "We weren't going to get any more because of the size of our market," he says.

Most of the eight SLS buyers are existing Mercedes-Benz owners - "not surprisingly from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch" - but Wright hopes to lure owners of rival supercars into the SLS next year.

"I expect production numbers from the factory to be a bit more flexible in 2011 and I'd like to think we could get conquest sales from Ferrari, for example."

At $450,000, the spiritual successor to the "Gullwing" 300SL of the 1950s, one of the design icons of the 20th century, sits at the top of the AMG offerings: the CL63 costs $359,000, the S63 $355,000 and the SL63 $374,900.

Across the ditch, Mercedes-Benz has sold 43 SLS models out of its allocated 50 for 2010 and has asked the factory for another 20. Price starts at A$468,000 ($584,000).

"Our allocation for 2010 could well be insufficient," says the managing director of Mercedes-Benz Cars in Australia, Horst von Sanden. "Even in advance of the actual market launch, orders have considerably exceeded our expectations. This shows that the exciting design and extraordinary concept of our gullwing model precisely meet the taste and aspirations of potential customers."

The SLS made its global public debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show last September. It effectively replaces the $2 million McLaren SLR supercar, built in limited numbers in Britain for the past seven years. Production ended last December with the final special edition SLR Stirling Moss speedster.

The SLS AMG is almost 150kg lighter than the McLaren SLR, thanks to the use of an all-aluminium spaceframe body, a first for Mercedes-Benz. It has a kerb weight of 1620kg against 1768kg for the carbon-fibre-bodied SLR.

The new "Gullwing" model is being built at the largest Mercedes-Benz assembly plant, Sindelfingen, from where a convertible derivative is expected in about 12 months and an all-electric version by 2015. A smaller SLS is also likely.

The SLS is powered by a dry-sump version of AMG's 6.2-litre V8 that delivers 420kW at 6800rpm and 650Nm of torque from 4750rpm.

Power goes to the rear wheels via a lightweight carbon-fibre driveshaft and a seven-speed twin-clutch sequential gearbox, another first for Mercedes-Benz.

The drive shaft is a carbon-fibre unit, weighing 4.7kg and based on those used in the carmaker's C-Class DTM race cars. The Gullwing's aluminium spaceframe weighs 241kg.

The SLS has a 47/53 per cent front/rear weight distribution, rides on forged aluminium double wishbones front and rear, and sprints from zero to 100km/h in a claimed 3.8 seconds. Top speed is 317km/h. Town-and-around fuel consumption is said to be 13.2 litres/100km.