I saw this car in the real at the SEMA show last fall, and I had to do a double take. My first impression was that some damn fool had modified an original Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing coupe, and I was going to have to throw hands. But as I walked around the car it unveiled its secrets to me. Looking inside, it was obvious that the car couldn’t be original as the interior wasn’t proper Gullwing, and the automatic shifter sticking out of the dash outed the car as a more modern AMG-built SLK wearing an elaborate 300SL hat.
Once the anger had subsided and I’d seen the light, I was actually quite intrigued. I’m not 100% sold on the car’s aesthetic execution, but the concept is still super interesting.
With an SLK32 AMG under the body, it’s got a 350 horsepower supercharged V6 and can run a 0-60 time in the 5-second range. That stock body has been replaced with a fiberglass 300SL shell, and probably weighs a little less than it would have from the factory. Throw a smaller supercharger pulley on and give it a flash tune, and it’s probably a mega monster.
A stock 300SL from the 1950s weighed about 3300 pounds and produced 175 horsepower. In the video, the builder says his clone weighs about half, but I’d be surprised if that was the case. A stock SLK32 weighed just over 3000 pounds new, and despite being fiberglass, I bet that body isn’t exactly Sport-Leicht.
Anyway, Larry Chen and the car builder do a full walkthrough of the build, and I’d walk straight into hell and bitch slap Satan himself for additional Larry Chen content. And stick around for the end, because the burnouts are awesome. How often do you get to see something shaped like a 300SL doing burnouts? The guys with multi-million dollar examples aren’t going to go out and shred rubber any time soon. I’ll take what I can get.
Leave a Reply
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
