The Mercedes-AMG SL63 E Performance Churns Out 800bhp And 1000lb ft, For Pete’s Sake

The new Mercedes-AMG SL is a bit of an odd car. Stuck in a sort of no-man’s land between being a sports car and a grand tourer, it’s a hard thing to work out. We’re not sure whether more power was the answer for improving it, but regardless, that’s what we now have via the SL63 E Performance.

By ‘more power’, we mean a peak figure of 804bhp, backed up with 1047lb ft of torque, making for a 0-62mph time of just 2.9 seconds and a top speed of 196mph. Crivens.

If some of those figures sound familiar, it’ll be because a lot of them match those of the lengthily named AMG GT 63 E-Performance 4-Door Coupe, which uses pretty much the same powertrain setup. This involves a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 which is good for around 600bhp on its own, supplemented by an electronic motor on the rear axle juiced by a 6.1kWh battery pack.

All of that will, of course, add a lot of weight, too - somewhere around 250kg, if the GT 63 E-Performance is anything to go by. The SL was hardly a flyweight to begin with, so this is going to be a rather hefty thing.

Power from the V8 makes its way to all wheels via a nine-speed automatic gearbox, and while the motor generally powers the rear wheels, it can transfer torque to the fronts if the back end starts to slip. It uses a two-speed gearbox.

Exactly how all this hybrid stuff depends on which of the many modes you’re in. And we mean many - there’s Electric, Battery Hold, Comfort, Smoothness, Sport, Sport Plus, Race and Individual to choose from, plus four levels of brake regeneration. The car will start in electric mode, accompanied by a fake V8 noise piped through the speakers. Hopefully, there’s a way of turning that off.

“The battery is designed for fast power delivery and consumption and not for the longest possible range,” Mercedes says, which is why the electric-only range is a modest eight miles. The charging capacity is 3.7kW, which doesn’t sound like much, but as the battery is fairly small as far as PHEVs go, the charging time via a home wallbox should only be around an hour and a half.

A price hasn’t been revealed just yet, but when a non-hybrid SL63 is already £171,965, we could be looking at a figure beyond £200,000, and two times what’s charged for the entry-level SL43.