Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series planned?

It looks like Mercedes could be planning a 700bhp Black Series version of the SLS AMG Gullwing

It looks like Mercedes is planning a Black Series version of the SLS AMG Gullwing with up to 700bhp and a 3.0 second 0-60mph.

We’ve only just had the official launch of the Mercedes SLS AMG Gullwing at Frankfurt, and it won’t hit the roads until well in to 2010. But we also know that Mercedes is working on an SLS AMG Roadster and even an SLS eDrive electric version. But now comes news of another SLS – the Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series.

Currently, the top of the AMG Black Series tree is the SL65 Black. An awesome machine, but a bit of a lost soul. It loses the one thing that makes the SL special – the trick roof – and replaces it with a wave of power that isn’t actually that easy to put down on the road. It also doesn’t handle as well as you’d expect – it’s just too cumbersome.

But the prospect of an SLS AMG Black is a very appealing one. If you endow the SLS with the sort of setup the SL65 Black has – the V12 twin-turbo – and put it on a diet with extensive use of carbon fibre panels, you would have a monster of a car. We could easily see something close to 700bhp with a 0-60mph in the very low 3 second range and a top speed of up to 225mph.

Such a halo SLS would command prices similar to those of the last Mercedes Supecar – the McLaren SLR – which would put it up over £300,000. But with the sort of performance potential an SLS Black would have that shouldn’t provide too much of an obstacle to sales. After all, the SL65 Black wasn’t a lot cheaper than that and all 10 cars that came to the UK sold by lottery -such was the demand (although the Germans apparently struggled to shift their allocation of 40 cars).

So a limited run of SLS AMG Black Series cars is a very good possibility. I know of one a guy – a friend and real petrol-head – who had the SLS AMG on order long before the world knew much about it. But he was dreadfully disappointed when the details of the SLS were revealed – he was expecting power in the 650bhp range (are you reading this, Frank?). So I know Mercedes will have at least one customer for the SLS AMG Black.

And there are a lot more people in the world just like Frank. Although, of course, there’s no one quite like Frank!