Click above for a high-res gallery of the SL65 AMG Black Series.
After months of spy shots and speculation, the Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series is finally out in the open. And with a $320,000 price tag, a twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V12 and only 200 units on their way to the U.S., it's a serious stopgap between the deceased SLR and Mercedes' 2011 SLC gullwing supercar.
Mercedes' in-house tuners applied their tried and true philosophy to the SL65 AMG Black Series, beginning with a carbon fiber hood, fenders and trunk, along with nixing the retractable hard top in favor of a fixed carbon fiber roof with an integrated roll cage. As such, the Black is 550 pounds lighter than the stock SL65, coming in at 4,122 pounds.
Seven vents – three in the bumper, two on the hood and two in the fenders – feed copious quantities of air to the 6.0-liter V12, fitted with a duo of upgraded turbochargers. Power is up to 661 hp available at 5,400 rpm, while torque remains the same at 738 lb.-ft. With a five-speed automatic gearbox equipped with AMG's speedshift software, the Black can hit 60 mph in 3.9 seconds on its way to a gearing-limited top speed of 199 mph.
Expect the SL65 AMG Black Series to debut in Paris, with sales beginning in the U.S. early next year.
Click above image for a gallery of the Corvette S-Limited
In celebration of GM's 100th Anniversary, GM Asia-Pacific has unveiled the Corvette S-Limited, a 30-car special for the Japanese market. priced at ¥7,980,000. The allotment is split evenly by color -- 15 in Arctic White and 15 in Black. All the cars get the full leather-wrapped interior package; a rear spoiler, mesh grillework , and screened inserts for the side coves and the plate between the exhaust outlets. 'Vettes in Japan are probably scarce enough that they still draw plenty of attention. Hey, in the land where the best-selling car's engine displaces 660cc's, a thundering, 430-horsepower American pushrod that displaces 6.2 liters is always gonna make people look. Appropriately, the Corvette S-Limited officially goes on sale on the Fourth of July.
Somebody buying a Bentley Brooklands isn't so concerned with how it performs, how it stacks up to the competition or how much it costs. They're far more taken by the Bentley-ness of the whole thing, that je ne sais quoi, a certain indescribable quality that you just can't put your finger on, lest the car's owner release the hounds...so you'd better get your own.
Put yourself in that mindset before you watch the following video. Imagine you've got all the money and taste in the world and ignore the notion that the Continental GT is the better performer, because the "baby Bentley" is just so nouveau riche. Now pour yourself a brandy, light up a cigar and enjoy what amounts to little more than some black and white footage of a land yacht accompanied by some acid jazz...jaaaazzzz!
If just about any part breaks on your 1971 Volkswagen Beetle, you could probably get a replacement from a hundred different outlets. If the black box goes out on your 1996 Lincoln Mark VIII, your car becomes little more than a giant paperweight. With the profusion of different cars and the electrical components that go in them, automakers would face an inventory nightmare if they tried to stockpile all of the necessary replacement parts. So in order to avoid that scenario, once the warranty runs out, they simply stop making the parts.
Ted Field, Sr. found out the hard way when the black box went out on his Mark VIII. Ford doesn't make the part any more -- and doesn't have to, since the warranty is finished and "the part is obsolete" -- and no aftermarket company has reverse-engineered it. That means that an 11-year-old car with 66,000 miles on it ... is also obsolete. As a customer, Field has no idea how popular -- or not -- the Mark VIII would be, and couldn't have had any idea when he bought the state-of-the-art car that he'd be scrounging for parts just a few years later (relatively speaking). We often consider the price of technology on the front end -- say, how much more will a car equipped with ABS cost? But as cars become more and more computerized, and the obsolescence of computer technology occurs in faster cycles, it will be interesting to see what kind of price we have to pay on the back end as well.
In London, the black cab has instant recognition, cult appeal, a 25-foot turning circle, Euro IV emissions clearance, and drivers behind the wheel who don't earn their licenses until they've memorized the contents of a book simply called The Knowledge. Now, thanks to an unnamed buyer, the black cab also has a pink paint job.
LTI Vehicles produces London's trademark people mover, the current model being the TX4. LTI will make the cabs in any color, and this particular buyer decided to test that proposition, requesting a one-off version in candyfloss pink. The 4-man paint shop team mixed to order, and Mike McKenzie, one of the painters, called it "the most outlandish" cab they've done so far. The interior remains a muted black, so if you ever get a ride in it, only those on the outside will see how pretty you look in pink. The buyer paid a surcharge for the special color -- but the question is: would you?
Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. So then the Japanese must really love Aston Martins, because from Japanese tuning house DAMD (the same people who brought you this custom Mitsu Outlander) comes yet another Aston Martin look-alike.
Like the 350Z roadster we brought you a while back, DAMD's Nissan Skyline 350GT/Infiniti G35 Coupe puts an Aston snout on a Datsun. Aside from the custom front end and a set of ghastly chrome rims, the rest of the coupe seems pretty much stock.
The Aston G and the Aston Z are both part of the Black X Metal line-up, in collaboration with ANCEL, and also includes an Aston-nozed MX-5 (similar to this one).
Flickr member Lostangel's late model Subaru WRX STi was the personal whip of a Sith Lord in another life. Either that, or it has just returned from an audition for the role of K.I.T.T. in the upcoming Knight Rider movie. Seriously though, Lostangel has completely changed the demeanor of the affable WRX into something much more sinister. Up front he swapped the front clip with a JDM STi front end, then he removed the "shopping cart" rear wing and replaced the trunk with one made of carbon fiber. Tinting the glass all the way around and removing every bit of pink from the STi badging finishes off the black out treatment.
Performance mods so far have been measured and include a K&N Typhoon Intake, Magnaflow Titanium catback exhaust, ACPT Carbon Fiber driveshaft and short throw shifter from Kartboy. More engine mods are on the way in the form of a turbo upgrade, improvements for the fuel system and new pipe work. The current set of rollers on the car is the stock set of 17-inch BBS rims, powdercoated black of coures, but 18-inch SSR Professors in black are on the way.
Inside Lostangel's converted the interior lighting to red so that it now matches the glow of the gauges. The stereo has also been kicked up a notch with a Clarion base deck that sports red lighting, new Kicker speakers all around and two Kicker low-profile 8-inch subwoofers under the front seats.
And for those who are wondering what his vanity plate means... "All-Wheel Drive For The Win."
We've gotten a few more WRX and EVO submissions, but keep them coming. We've also decided on a theme for next week: Camaros! Everyone with a Camaro of note should submit his or her ride to our Flickr pool. We have no Camaros in the pool right now, so we need to fill it up with enough submissions to cover all of next week. Just follow the instructions after the jump to submit.
Mercedes' in-house performance division AMG is working on a new CLK on 'roids, slotting in between the CLK63 and the homologation special CLK DTM. Called the Black Series, it is expected to be the first in a new line of über-AMGs.
The CLK Black Series, wrapped in a carbon-composite body with beefed up suspension, is expected to molest 530 horses to get it up to sixty in a scant four-and-a-half seconds.
Follow the link to our Dutch compatriots at Autovisie, who've snagged these video clips of the new Black Benz as it was undergoing testing on the vaunted Nordschleife track at the Nürburgring. Blitzschnell!
Lamborghini took the black wraps off the Gallardo Nera, a special edition of their "entry level" V10 supercar.
What differentiates this Gallardo from all others is primarily its color scheme. Painted in Nero Noctis (Nero Serapis in Europe), with side mirrors housings, rear spoiler, select body panels front and rear, roof, door sills, rear apron and Calisto wheels all matte black. The interior is black and white: Nero Perseus and Bianco Polar with white piping and top-stitching to contrast.
The Gallardo Nera will be produced in a limited edition of 185. It comes packed with sat nav, rear view camera (handy for parking and laughing at the cars you've left in the dust), lifting suspension (for negotiating curbs and annoying speed bumps) and a special car cover. The Nera edition might be just the thing for those with a big chunk of cash and a taste for something a bit more stealthy than bright orange or lime green.
I see a line of cars and they're all painted black - The Rolling Stones, "Paint It Black"
We know Mick wasn't singing about the the new HHR Fall Limited Edition rolling off the assembly line. It was 1966, after all. Things were all good in Detroit. Those were the days when "SS" really meant "SS" and a compact 4-banger retro-wagon was the last thing on any GM exec's mind. We'd go so far as to say that the mere concept would have been considered heresy.
But times change, and the lyric could very much be applied to this just-announced special-edition HHR. After all, the Fall Limited Edition is very, very black. Black paint, black chrome, black interior, tinted lamps -- the normally perky little HHR is all gothed up, and you know what, it looks pretty good this way.
Chevy will build 4,000 of them, and you can darken your garage with one for the entirely reasonable sum of $20,265*.
New KITT Attack Mode revealed at Comic Con
London 2008: Honda OSM concept roadster says, "Cheerio!"
London 2008: Lotus unveils the Evora
2010 Chevy Camaro - Official Details and Images
2010 Chevy Camaro - LIVE from the reveal
First Drive: Maserati Quattroporte S in Europe
First Drive: 2008 MINI Cooper S JCW
In the Autoblog Garage:2009 Nissan GT-R
North American Exclusive First Drive: Alfa MiTo
First Drive: 2009 Kia Borrego
