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A 7.3L V12 was available in these things!? Holy crap!
Must be very rare. I've DEF never seen a SL73 AMG badge before.
It wasn't for sale alongside other R129s at dealers or anything, but yep!!! Very exclusive, obviously.
Talk about a monster.
Originally Posted by TangoRed
I have no doubt that the manual transmission offered in those R129's is wholly unsatisfying to operate. They had a good gearbox in the W203 C350 and R171 SLK very briefly but other than that every Mercedes manual I've tried has not been good.
Agreed. Plus, the old 5 speed automatic was a really good transmission. I can't believe Mercedes didn't use electronic controls for its transmissions until the later 90s. They were hydraulic until then. Which means any torquey car with a lightning fast transmission could have got the jump on big powerful Mercedes because half the time they wouldn't downshift.
you and the V12s lol just buy a cheap old S600 already!
also you have to say better for what... you'll notice that the V12 model of something typically isn't much (if at all) faster since they're heavier, one of the reasons mercedes removed the V12 from the CLK LM racer and put their V8 back in
the G65 also had a slower 0-60 than the G63 since it required the old slushy 5-speed when the V8 in the G63 could be paired to the newer 7-speed
But what's the 0-100 speed.....the V8 is a lower class of car than a 12 for a reason.
I think AMG did have more control as they were separate from Mercedes. I do think you could buy an AMG at that time from a Mercedes-Benz dealer.
Yes. They were contracted with Mercedes starting in 1990 as a manufacturing partner, so from that time forward you could order an AMG from any Benz dealer, similar to PAS (Turbo Trans Am, Syclone, Typhoon) for GM or Saleen for Ford. In 1999, Mercedes gained majority ownership of AMG and their cars became part of the official lineup.
To build an SL70/72/73, you would actually order an SL600 to your spec (other than the AMG appearance package being mandatory), and the completed car would then be sent to AMG to have the engine removed, torn down, bored and stroked to the larger displacement, new internals installed and reassembled. They'd also add some other parts. I'm not clear if it then was shipped directly to the dealer, or went back to the factory for QC prior to delivery.
12-18-23, 01:00 PM
