Mercedes-Benz SLS first photo leaked

Apparently this is the first official picture of the Mercedes SLS AMG, the supercar replacement for the defunct Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR, with styling cues inherited from the classic 300 SL.

Designed in-house instead of handing over the work to McLaren, the SLS uses a modified version of AMG’s 6.2L normally-aspirated V8 to develop 571 hp and 479 lb-ft of torque, with a 0-60 mph time of 3.6 seconds and a top speed of almost 200 mph. The SLS is also expected to be cheaper than the McLaren SLR, at just over $200,000.

Mercedes-Benz had already released photos of the production interior as well as the prototype in action. While the first exterior photo was leaked by the Dutch Autowereld.com website, the British Autocar magazine claims that an SLS eDrive is in the works for a 2015 debut. It will be a plug-in electric car built upon a heavily-modified version of the SLS platform.

According to Autocar, the electric SLS will be powered by 4 electric motors, each spinning one of the wheels and each has 98 kW, or 133 hp. So basically the car is a four-wheel-drive and has a combined power of 392 kW, translating to 532 hp and 649 lb-ft of torque. They also have to delete the SLS’s front double-wishbone suspension to make enough space for putting in the motors on the front axle. The SLS eDrive would use horizontally-mounted coilover dampers instead.

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