Mercedes SL65 Black on steroids

The Brabus Mercedes SL65 Black - the T65 RS

The Brabus version of the Mercedes SL65 Black Series – the Brabus T65 RS – comes equipped with 800bhp and 811lb/ft of torque. But it’s still an old SL.

So you want a quick, two seater Mercedes? What do you go out and get? At the moment, there’s not much choice – you grab an SLS. But the SLS is not the most powerful car you’ve ever come across. It’s no sluggard, true, but it struggles up to Supercar status with its 563bhp and 0-60mph approaching 4 seconds. Good figures, but not truly brutal.

And those figures are enough to discourage some. One friend of Cars UK had an SLS on order from long before the world in general knew it was coming. He’d been expecting something around 650bhp and was really disappointed at 100bhp less. So the order got cancelled. And you know, if Mercedes want to play at £160k cars they do need to be really special, especially now they no longer have the McLaren badge to add credibility.

But this is second-hand. We’ve spoken to those who have driven the SLS, but we haven’t. But it’s not barking mad. Not barking mad like the Mercedes SL65 Black was. That offered 650bhp (through a 5-speed, fairly ancient auto ‘box) and 740lb/ft of torque. It was immense off the line (in the bone dry only) even if it was less than brilliant on the bends. And its seats were made of next to nothing and very uncomfortable.

But there’s an answer to the Mercedes SL65’s drawbacks in the guise of the Brabus version – the Brabus T65 RS. That comes with nearly 800bhp, 811lb/ft of torque and a 0-124mph in 9.8 seconds. And it gets proper seats that won’t wreck your back.

But it’s still an ancient Mercedes SL underneath. What we’d really like to see is the Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series. Not with the puny tweaking of the 6.2 in the current car to get close to 600bhp as is now rumoured. But a tweaked and fettled version of the bi-turbo V12 with over 700bhp we heard was in the mix when we first reported on the SLS Black. But Mercedes are probably too ‘Eco’ sensitive to build a car like that in the current climate.

Shame. We know one buyer who’d write a cheque today.

Update: You can find details on exactly what Brabus have done to the SL65 to create the T65 RS in the Brabus T65 RS press release.