Autoblog

Finding the ideal luxury sports car is a Goldilocks proposition: cars that fulfill either descriptive – luxury or sports – are piled high as Annapurna. For instance, the Ferrari F430 is a luxurious sports car, but it's not a luxury car. The current CL63 is a sporty luxury car, but it's not a sports car. Try to find a conveyance in which the little girl with the golden locks would sigh "This one is just right" – a car that has the sporting reflexes to keep her heart beating and a cabin supple enough for her to unwind in when the twisties are finished – and you see the field is disturbingly minuscule. Against all odds, the SL63 is that car: Goldilocks' Golden Mean. Follow the jump to find out how and why, and check out the gallery of high-res images below.


Photos Copyright ©2008 Jonathon Ramsey / Weblogs, Inc.

Click the image above for more hi-res shots of the SL63

Two doors, no top, red leather interior, ceramic brakes, and 538 horses is a combination you once expected to be named for an Italian city or racing personage. No more. And while the alpha-numeric SL63 might not be all that Germanic in itself, it gets no more Teutonic than the hyphenated moniker "Mercedes-Benz" that precedes it. Now that Merc is making cars as fast as those of its Latin neighbor, perhaps the SL63 -- being a tad more comfortable -- is the car you drive to go check on the progress of your bespoke Italian supercar. Check out the hi-res gallery of the Bahn-burningest droptop.

Mercedes engineers have been busy testing several new prototypes at Colorado's Mt. Evans roadway, with both the upcoming C63 wagon and the facelifted SL roadster spotted on the high-altitude pass. These shots were taken by Doug DeMuro who you may remember also sent in the pics of Ralph Lauren's all-black Bugatti Veyron driving near the designer's ranch near Ridgway in Colorado.

Mercedes took the wraps off the new C63 sedan at the start of this month, and the forthcoming wagon variant is in line to get the same performance upgrades. This means the new sports wagon will be powered by a 457hp hand-built 6.2L AMG V8 developing peak torque of 600Nm. The spy shots reveal the new C63's bonnet power bulge, pumped wheel arches and the front bumper side vents. Previous versions of the AMG prepped C-wagon were never sold in the US, but the fact that Mercedes engineers are testing it in Colorado means we might see it Stateside.

Another new model spotted on Mt. Evans that same day was the facelifted SL roadster, which is likely to feature a new SL63 variant as well. The prototype reveals a new front-end design for the SL with different shaped headlights, plus a new bumper and grille, but we'll have to wait until it's launched next year to see how it all pans out.

Big props to Doug for sending these in!