Mercedes-Benz SL 400 2014 Review

The SL 400 is a car that Mercedes-Benz spokesman David McCarthy described to motoring.com.au as a 'sports tourer' – as opposed to an out-and-out sports car. It's no MX-5, to be sure. There's plenty of room to stretch out and the driving position is very well sorted. Mercedes has a knack for designing seats, steering wheel and mirrors for rapid, flexible adjustment to suit most occupants. The style inside is pleasant and the materials are luxurious. And Benz's ergonomic conventions are rational and fairly easy to understand from the word go.

The SL 400's seats really hug and support the occupants well, but not uncomfortably, as I discovered during the initial hour of driving from Melbourne Airport to Yarra Glen.

And one thing I recall from the R230 was that it was somewhat harder to exit than this new model, which you vacate without any contortion or rolling out the side. Perhaps the door sills are lower now? This new SL is a more practical machine for day-to-day driving, with ergonomics more befitting its 'sports tourer' status.

The new engine – in this application – is a mellow-sounding unit that offers responsive power delivery without ever feeling or sounding strained. There's torque available practically anywhere in the rev range. Over a 20km drive loop the SL 400 was chewing through fuel at the rate of 20L/100km briefly, according to the trip computer, but after settling down into a gentler driving mode that figure tumbled to 13.7L/100km, which is not bad, everything considered. The posted fuel consumption was still falling too, by the time the drive ended.

The engine drives through a seven-speed automatic transmission which is smooth and responsive in equal measure, as we've come to expect of Benz auto boxes. With exploitable power always on tap – through both the medium of the transmission and the engine's own rapid-fire delivery – the SL was a throttle-sensitive handler, like sports cars of yore. Through tricky corners that tightened up, the SL could be relied on to track around simply by the driver lifting off the throttle and then reapplying power as the radius changed again.

Given the magnitude of cornering grip available and the instantaneous throttle response, the SL 400 was a lot of fun, but not at the expense of ride quality. Vindicating McCarthy's 'sports tourer' appellation, the SL 400 provided a cosseting ride even with the dampers set to Sport mode. Yet the car also felt taut in the body, even with the top down and over occasional lumpy and patchy bitumen.

All up, the SL 400 is a credit to the current R231 generation, and it has earned a place in the pantheon of SL sports cars – although not as high up as a Pagoda roof 280 SL.

It has to be mentioned at this point, however, that the Mercedes is more expensive than Jaguar's F-TYPE R, a car designed in a very similar mould. In many ways, the Mercedes can justify that expense, but an extra litre of displacement and two more cylinders will be hard to pass up if the Benz badge is less important than outright performance.

So that makes the SL 400 a car aimed more at Benz cognoscenti perhaps, rather than someone simply shopping around for the most bang they can get from $200,000 plus.

Also consider:
>> Jaguar F-TYPE R