At the starting line it should be said the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is a stunning piece of engineering. Developed jointly between the two automotive powerhouses, the SLR Mclaren is a shining example of automotive design. This sports car was also jointly built in Portsmouth and in Woking, Surrey England. Daimler AG who owns Mercedes-Benz also has a 40% ownership of the McLaren Group. It seems a joint venture was only a matter of time.

The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is by far the fastest automatic transmission sports car in the entire world. The initials SLR stand for “Sport, Leicht, Rennsport”. In English, this would mean sport, light, racing. In the span of a seven year period, Mercedes-Benz has announced that they will only build a total of 3,500 SLRs with a yearly production of just 500 cars. The base price of this sports car is approximately $495,000.

The Mercedes SLR McLaren enjoys carbon-ceramic brake pads, which are capable of providing superior stopping power. The company claims that these discs happen to be fade resistant to a temperature of 1,200 degrees Celsius. The front disc brakes are 370 mm in diameter and are internally vented. Eight piston calipers are used. In the rear, the discs are 360 mm in diameter and four piston calipers are used. When conditions on the roadways are wet, the calipers automatically skim the discs’ surfaces to keep them dry. There is an automatic air brake that ultimately improves braking performance. When this brake is engaged, the rear spoiler assumes a 65 degree elevation angle.

The hand-built 5.4 liter V-8 engine is supercharged and boasts a compression ratio of 8.8:1. The engine bore is 97 millimeters while the stroke is 92 millimeters. The engine puts out a maximum power of 626 PS at 6,500 revolutions each minute. The engine of the SLR McLaren is front-mid mounted. McLaren thought that he would take the original concept of the car, which was designed by Mercedes, and decide to move the engine 1 meter behind the front bumper and approximately 50 centimeters behind the front axle. The design of the center firewall was also optimized.

In order to keep the weight of this sports car low, carbon fiber was used for the entire body construction. Tests have shown that the SLR is able to achieve a 0-60 mph in a time that was really under the claimed 3.8 seconds, and the car reached a maximum velocity of 208 mph. “Car and Driver” actually achieved a 0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds and a quarter-mile time was equal to 11.6 seconds at the velocity of 125 mph. It is hard to believe that in the category of luxury cars, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren sports car was able to reach such incredible speeds in such a short amount of time.