Gadgetory

the SL in Mercedes SL is supposed to mean sport lightweight which the car hasn't been since the last time Nixon had a bright future but with this the sixth generation it's come back somewhat to those roots and watered them generously with advanced technology let's drive the 2013 SL 550 and check that Tech three inches longer two inches wider and with more massive lines and a macho face in the 2012 model this is to my eye not so much a pretty car as an impressive one maybe it's the Mars red color but this year's SL got more looks than any previous year I can recall exposing the public to now for 2013 Mercedes has kind of revised the cabin of the SL it's got a lot of this throwback stuff with these big round nozzles around the vehicle but the key is always the same here in the center stack and that is the Mercedes command system which today is looking like kind of a small screen it's kind of the iPhone of its class navigation has always been really well rendered by Mercedes you can also go fullscreen which helps a lot with this relatively diminutive display at that sort of setting it's actually not bad and bless their little German hearts for not making me jump through hoops to navigate the map the way BMW does just grab the controller kick it around the direction you want to go for flyovers now for media you have a lot of things to choose from AM and FM radio with HD radio of course satellite radio six CD changer right here in the dash memory card means SD card right here you're not going to use that music register is a hard drive you have ten gigabytes of the 80 gigabyte navigation drive available to rip media to USB storage is here in the console I've got to stick in there now the media interface is this proprietary cable which in this configuration has an apple connector as well as a female aux pigtail right above the USB seems that they can make that a little simpler to be honest and of course Bluetooth audio for streaming and I showed you the aux we also have Bluetooth hands-free calling of course phonebook downloading all the bells and whistles around that now on the output side very interesting this car comes base with a 5.1 surround Harman Kardon logic seven surround system and the subs are fascinating there are two subs built into the frame of the car right about the firewall there's somewhere just past the Floor Mats there and the base in this car really is remarkable which is quite a trick in an open car now if you roll across this ribbon further there's your phone technology you can play DVDs that's what's under video that's only when you're parked obviously but look at the little globe icon when you press that you get outrageously a sign-in form you have to do a form literally with your name address and email address so Google will let you move forward to use some apps you have Google local search silly news headlines who have already ran on some other better device here's Yelp restaurant reviews that's interesting downloading POS and routes from outside the car Facebook that scares me the Google local search is interesting is it lets you both enter address obviously and then navigate to it but most importantly it also gives you Street View and you can pan around but notice we don't have the Google Earth view for navigation the way you know who does I'm talking about howdy note the green irony none of this works while you're moving it's a car not a tablet and even if it was one it'd be a damn small one now related to this but different is the embrace app you can put on your smart phone that lets you have a relationship between the phone and the car locate the car lock and unlock the doors not nearly as sexy as this but possibly a lot more useful San Francisco we're starting get to the era where voice command is getting more natural in vehicles in other words a little closer to what your phone does for one one-thousandth the price do you want to enter a house number or do you want to start route guidance house member please say the house number two three five house number 2 3/5 accepted do you want to start mood guidance yes starting route guidance and you'll also notice it was very quick on the uptake to process what I said this is a really good voice command system now the seats in an SL have always been a wonder of engineering we have the active seats in this car so as you corner the bolsters kind of do this to hold you in place it's kind of spooky I find it kind of annoying but a lot of folks love it lots of comfort controls here are three levels of heat on this button three levels of ventilation back here is the air scarf button that's this guy right over here this is a heater it really works well even though you've got all this air flow coming over the top of the car it doesn't come down here and steal the warm air wonderful engineering oh this is kind of dirty you got massage seats with one two three four levels of whatever it is they do from slow and gentle too fast and vigorous I don't think children should ride in this car now you've never seen a glass roof like this before normally you've got a shade you pull back and forth to make the Sun go away if you're getting cooked on this one you hit the magic sky control button right here on the roof console look what happens it lightens up electrochromic lee that's pretty cool in fact it's also cool that we have a retractable with a big glass panel that's also amazing especially since this is I believe the fastest convertible top in the world for a retractable at least look at this thing it's a miracle of Engineering it does settle back in as it does this multi panel clamshell thing to take up a fair amount of your trunk space but look how quick that was that was 16 seconds oh notice what's missing here no ugly windshield washer nozzles instead there are laser drilled spray nozzles in the windshield wiper assembly so the stuff actually ends up on the glass and not mostly over your roof on the car behind you now under the engine bay comes a bit of interpretation this may be an SL 550 but it's not a 5.5 liter engine or a 5 liter engine with today's modern technology you get plenty of power out of a 4.6 it has direct injection you can hear that multi spark it fires a spark one several times for a combustion cycle both of these intakes are force-fed by their own turbocharger one per Bank all this adds up to an engine that does 429 horsepower impressive but the torque is the real key number 516 foot pounds that's a lot for a car that only weighs 4,000 pounds now it's mostly aluminum construction these days and that means they shave some 300 pounds to get it down to two tons on the nose zero to sixty about four and a half seconds and delivering 16 24 mpg no gas guzzler tax all this power goes out through a one choice only 7-speed automatic let's go for a ride despite shedding what bring in the pounds since the last year's model it's still a heavy car that is not a sports car that's zero to sixty and four and a half seconds is impressive but the power comes on in big globs in all the SL 550 succeeds and exceeds at what it aims to do which is to be a personal luxury statement and an exceptionally comfortable car with a sporting veneer to it okay an SL 550 is not a cheap copper this thing bases at 106 now the good news is it's really well equipped most of the technology we saw in the cabin is part of the base trim one you have to add on a cart though is that kind of frustrating Mercedes apps sweet that's $14 a month an interesting new pricing model for the auto industry for any kind of option and the one you have to get $2,500 for the magic sky control glass roof