DavidM

A friend of mine has a 500SL .... it's not the brand new model but the previous one but still a very nice car. He took me for a spin in it about a week ago and it was surprisingly very quick .... quicker then I have expected. Afterall, even with the 240kW (and about 480Nm) that it pumps out from it's 5.0L V8 - it does weight almost 1800kg. Of course, it's also an auto. Anyway, when he took me for a spin the car felt very much like my father's R8 in terms of acceleration ... it did not 'feel' that much slower but I know it had to be - turns out that it is but not by much as tonight I got a chance to do some 'drags' in my S2000 against the 500SL. We did a few runs and this is how they went (both of us alone in the car with roofs up):

1) Rolling start from 90kph to 150kph (me in 3rd gear). It was ment to be 100kph+ start but it didn't work out so I got caught in the wrong gear and by the time I felt like I was getting some power down he was good 2-3 car lenghts ahead and I was doing good 110kph. This was only like 2secs after we started. After that I felt I actually pulled him back about 1/2 to 1 car lenght.

2) Rolling start from 80kph to 140kph (me in 2nd). This time things were a lot more even. As we started moving, I was edging away ever so slighlty (maybe 1 foot per second). By the time we shut down I was about 1 car-lenght ahead but not pulling away that much (if at all) at that stage.

3) Standing start to 140kph. This was from the lights and I reved the S2000 to about 7k rpm and dropped the clutch. I lit-up the rear tires, went slighlty sideways through the 1st gear and 'hooked up' at well above 6k revs. Pretty good start and it shot me good 2-3 car lenghts ahead of him by the time I 'hooked' up. After that things looked pretty even from where I was sitting and even if I was pulling away, it was not noticable (probably at 1 foot per second). By the time we shut down I was 3-4 car lenghts ahead but from what my 500SL friend said, no longer pulling away.

So the S2000 did well, but the 500SL impressed me very much with it's straighline grunt. Unlike S2000, it had this sort of grunt from off-idle and here's a couple of interesting stories he told me about dragging some other cars that our friends have (but I have not had a chance to line up):

- 500SL vs '98 WRX STi standing start to 160kph. Oddly enough he got the STi of the line by about a car-lenght and then the STi caught him and pulled away about 2 carenghts by 120kph. Though, after 140kph the 500SL was actually pulling in the STi and would eventually pass it. I'm surprised to hear that.

- 500SL vs TVR Cerrebra (4.0L V8 180kW) standing start to 140kph. Again the 500SL blew the TVR of the line, though this time by good 2 car lenghts and from then on the TVR never pulled back on the Merc.

Turns out I'm the first person to beat him of the line. I've been meaning to line up the TVR for a while now but timing is never right .... though, will do so as soon as I get the chance.... I thought I could make it close, but from the sound of it I can probably take him of the line. Either way, I was surprissed at how quick the 500SL really are - they'll give the 250Kw+ HSVs a very good run for their money.

Muz

2L 4 Cyl vs 5L 8 Cyl. The S2000 perfomed well. Very interesting review David.

Bernie

Seeing I feel like I'm getting old, I've been thinking of something more sedate. I have been thinking of a E430 or a 540 but perhaps one of these might be an idea too.......

s2k2

My mum had it 2 years ago. Nice ride. Pity I couldn't drive yet then

The 600's come with a V12 right?

Bernie

Yep

the 600 has the v12 in it. It feels like it has enough torque to pull a building down!

DavidM

I just stobled uppon this interesting comparision in 'Road & Track' from a few months ago. It's the one where they compared S2000 to NSX, M-Roadster (240hp) to Z8, SLK230 to 500SL etc ... Anyway, they took all the car on the same track (Willow Springs) and had Steve Miller drive all the cars (he's their local pro). Anyway here's some of the lap times:
- SLK230 = 1:20.5
- S2000 = 1:17.6
- BoxsterS = 1:17.4
- M-Roadster (240hp) = 1:17.2
- 500SL = 1:16.1
- NSX = 1:14.5
- F550 = 1:09.4
- F360 = 1:07.6

Yeah, that's right - 500SL was faster around the track than S2000, BoxsterS as well as the M-Roadster ... not just a tad, but comfortably by over a second ... that's a decent difference. Anywone care to take a guess at how this was/is possible? An 1800kg GT with auto-box which seems more suited for 'cruising' than track-work and it beat BoxsterS and S2000? How could that be?

Besides that the S2000, BoxsterS and M-Roadster were all pretty close as you'd pressume. Still, good to know that we're giving 10secs to the likes of F360 :-)

ps. They measured the 0-60mph time for the 500SL at 6.1secs.