Even though it’s too early to call the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren ‘legendary’, in the near future, people might just look back on it and call it one of the greatest GTs ever to prowl the mid-to-late 2000s.
Back when the SLR was first developed, the Mercedes used to own 40% of the McLaren Group, making this one of those joint-venture projects that people were sure to assume it couldn’t actually fail. By the way, the name SLR stands for ‘Sport Leicht Rennsport’ – which means Sport Light Racing, and was an homage to the original 300 SLR of 1955 fame.
Of course, the SLR McLaren didn’t actually fail as a concept. Almost everyone was genuinely impressed with the car and generally speaking, it would turn just about every head it would find on the road. In terms of sales though, things didn’t exactly go according to Mercedes’ plans.
The German manufacturer wanted to sell around 500 units per year over a 7 year span. What actually happened was they sold far less than that – 1,400 units as opposed to a total of 3,500 units from 2003 to 2010.
Regardless, for the rest of us, the car is still heroic in the sense that it’s special to look at and is powered by a very, very special hand-built 5.4-liter supercharged V8 engine, good for 626 PS and 780 Nm (580 lb-ft) of torque.
This was a lot of power for 2003, when most of the media marveled at the car’s ability to reach 100 km/h (62 mph) in less than 4 seconds. In fact, 3.8 seconds was the official figure. In terms of top speed, the SLR was capable of flying all the way up to 334 km/h (207 mph) which is faster than plenty of modern-day supercars.
As for the 2006 model you’re looking at here, it’s wearing custom ADV.1 wheels (ADV10R), pretty much identical to the ones we saw on this Ferrari F12 a couple of months ago.
The wheels measure 20×10 at the front and a proper 21×12.5 at the rear and are finished in a polished aluminum and gloss clear combo that makes the car look like an instant classic.
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