Skip to Content

Find your next home with Luxist's "Estate of the Day"

Filed under: Motorsports, Coupes, Sports/GTs, Wagons/Estates

New AMG Safety and Medical cars stand guard at every F1 race this season

2008 F1 Safety Car - SL 63 AMG
Click either image for a high-res photo gallery of the AMG F1 Safety/Medical cars

Mercedes-Benz has unveiled the new AMG Safety and Medical cars that will stand watch over every F1 race this season. The CLK Safety Car of last year has been retired, and in its place is a modified SL 63 AMG. Beyond the usual Safety Car markings and lighting, this 525-horsepower SL sports a front fascia that's modified to allow for extra cooling requirements, composite brakes, carbon fiber body panels, as well as a redesigned rear diffuser insert. Since the SL won't be used for open-top cruising, the entire top mechanism has been ditched, and its roof remains in the upright position. That, plus additional weight reduction measures, shave a hefty 485 pounds (220 kilos) off the AMG SL, making it lighter than the production version even when you take the emergency lighting, communications gear, and other Safety Car-specific mods into account.

2008 F1 Medical Car - C63 AMG EstateThe Safety Car will be joined by the 457-horsepower C63 AMG Estate Medical Car. The Medical Car carries a team of four and a full suite of emergency equipment as it shadows the competitors on Lap 1 of each race (generally the diciest) and is intended to be the first vehicle on scene in the event of an accident. Like the SL63 Safety Car, the Medical Car wears a revised front fascia and rear diffuser, both of which are required for the car to meet its enhanced cooling needs. It too uses the AMG Performance Braking System, with composite brakes providing maximum stopping power. As you'll see in the attached gallery, both cars feature a pair of monitors in the instrument panel that allow the safety and medical teams to follow the race from inside the vehicles so they can be ready to move the moment an incident occurs. Look for both machines next weekend as the 2008 F1 campaign kicks off in Australia.



[Source: Mercedes-Benz]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

Featured Galleries

Review: 2009 Smart ForTwo
Forza 3 Japanese Screen Shots
2010 Lamborghini LP550-2
First Drive: 2010 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
2010 Shelby GT/SR
2010 Shelby GT500 Super Snake
Review: 2010 Ford Fiesta (Euro-Spec)
BMW 7 Series M Sport
Peugeot Metromorph Concept
Review: 2009 Pontiac Solstice GXP Coupe
First Drive: 2010 Porsche Panamera
AOL Autos

Find Your Next Car


Autoblog Video

Autoblog Green

BloggingStocks

Download Squad

Engadget

Joystiq

Autoblog Spanish

Switched.com

FanHouse

Asylum