With Beverly Hills, California sharing one of the largest concentrations of SLs in the world (South Florida being the other SL high-density area), Mercedes Benz held the recent worldwide test drive of the new 2009 SL 550 and SL 600 in what MB officials call the “Bedroom of the SL.”

Backstory

Since 1954’s 300 SL gullwing, the Mercedes-Benz SL has held the top spot with trendsetters around the globe, including shakers in the movie industry in California, and the poseur industry back in my home state of Florida. With this test drive, we had a chance to see if the marque is moving forward or becoming a victim of its own success.

In a town where plastic surgery and body shaping is a high art form, it seems there is little change to the 2009 SL. A quick glance and you immediately know what it is. But beauty is always more than skin deep. A new front fascia incorporating fully enclosed headlight assemblies of the main, running and indicator lights sweep into the fenders, or wings as M-B calls them. The lights, in turn, flank the new single-bar grille, which borrows design cues from the original SL roadster of 1954. Twin power domes continue the nostalgia trip. A diffuser-style rear bumper with twin exhaust dumps that remind us more of the “smoking” attitude of the SL’s big brother SL63 and SL65 AMG models, brings up the new, more muscular, rear.

Aesthetics (4/5)

Looks are everything in Los Angeles, and Mercedes has made sure the SL “Coupe,” which in the span of 16-seconds turns into the SL Roadster, continues to look fresh. Still able to turn heads at the ripe old age of nine, it is kind of like the star that was once a starlet, but now has to go in for a little Nip/Tuck every now and then to make sure she remains one step ahead of the yapping little wannabes nipping at her Jimmy Choo shod tootsies.

Some of the starlets the SL has to contend with include Jaguar’s XK8, Porsche’s 911, Chevrolet’s Corvette and Cadillac’s XLR. All of these cars are true two-seaters, with the exception of the Jaguar, which officially is a four-seater or two+two, if you will, but let’s be serious. The last people to fit comfortably in the XK’s rear “seating” area were cast as Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz.

So with the aforementioned facelift to the grill area, and the butt-lift aft, the SL has been tightened up all around. The mechanized roof is truly an engineering marvel, still stopping spectators in their tracks to watch it accomplish the task at hand. Seeing that the roof panels take up much of the available trunk space when stowed, be prepared for coupe driving when going on any trip that requires more than a couple of small suitcases. Observing the outside lines of the SL 550 and V12 SL 600 shows a rather refined appearance with the subtle side gills that functionally release trapped air from inside the engine bay.

The restyled nose of the SL is quite attractive — especially in person. Some enthusiasts see a resemblance to Opel’s recent designs, and rightly so. For a car of this caliber, Mercedes should have gone the extra mile to make sure it didn’t remind anyone of a car that costs a fifth the price or less. That said, the new face is handsome in its own right.

As noted above, the tail of the car has been changed, but it remains very dated. It’s still aggressive, dramatic, and eye-catching, but so is a 15-year-old Ferrari — both still look old. A completely redesigned SL won’t arrive until 2012, so it will be interesting to see how this car looks parked beside the latest Bimmers and Jags in 2011.

Cabin (4.5/5)

The interior has been continually refined, sporting some of the best seats in the business. Adjustable in a million different directions, they offer movable side-bolsters, lumbar support, and hot or cold comfort through seat warmers and coolers. A new feature called Airscarf — first introduced on the SLK — directs warm air to your neck for al fresco driving while touring through Antarctica. This clever creature comfort allowed us to drive from suburban Los Angeles with temperatures in the low 70’s to 6000-feet up in the mountains with temperatures in the 40’s, all while driving topless!

Other details include a new design three-spoke steering wheel with redundant controls, and the ability to customize the interior with up to twelve single-tone and ten two-tone combinations of leather and wood trim. The downside to all of this is the interior has rather smallish storage areas within the cabin itself, requiring most valuables to be stored in the trunk. As before, safety is on the mind of engineers and designers at M-B: a leather-wrapped automatic roll bar pops up in a third-of-a-second, to hopefully prevent those who have a tendency to put the shiny side down from snapping their necks.

Technology (3.5/5)

Telematics (the fancy way to refer to navigation systems in cars) are present with the inclusion of Mercedes-Benz’s Navigation system with a six-and-a-half inch video monitor. Combined with the SL’s Harman Kardon audio system, it still managed to get us lost a couple of times along the Rim of the World highway route that took us from Silverwood Lake to Palm Springs, California.

The H-K system features the ability to play MP3 music files from a slot that takes an SD card. The process of downloading from the Mercedes / Harman Kardon website is cumbersome, when compared to the elegance of using Apple Computer’s iTune system. Incidentally, we found that although you can play music from your iPod using the enclosed USB connecting cord, you are not able to rip music from your personal computer’s iTunes program to the SD card for playback directly through the audio system. Song files must be in MP3 format, rather than Sony and Apple’s preferred AAC format.

From the SD card, songs can be downloaded to the H-K’s 40 gigabyte hard drive to store about 1000 song files. If that sounds like a small number of songs for 40 gigabytes, there’s a good reason — music storage is limited to around 4 gigs. The rest of the space is apparently used by other features, like the navigation. The COMAND system allows the display of song titles, artists, and albums on both the main screen as well as the smaller screen display between the speedo and tachometer. Maybe we’re just a little too demanding, but we think a six-figure car could come with a 160 gigabyte hard drive or more — unless the SL’s drive can hold as much music as an iPod (which is easily plugged in), few people will ever use it.

The high-end sound system is supposed to provide sedan-quality audio in the space of a convertible, but we found it just average for cars in this niche.

Performance (4.5/5)

Mercedes-Benz comes to the U.S. market with two choices for power: The 382-horsepower 5.5-liter V8 with 391 lb-ft of torque or the 510-horsepower twin-turbo V12, which has 612 lb-ft at its disposal. Curiously, though, the V8 is equipped with a seven-speed automatic transmission with Touch Shift, which provided satisfying gear-banging up and down the Angeles Crest Highway, while the V12 was only equipped with a five-speed auto, also with Touch Shift. The actual shifting was facilitated by the steering wheel mounted paddle shifters, which allowed us to keep both mitts on the wheel while negotiating the twisties. M-B touts the seven-speed for its increase in acceleration and fuel efficiency. Zero to sixty times for the SL550 click in at 5.5 seconds, and 4.3 seconds for the SL600.

Speaking of “the wheel,” our test vehicles were equipped with optional Direct-Steer system, which allows a progressive gearing of the rack ratio to change according to the sharpness of the turn. It was especially noticeable when we found ourselves in a situation where the SL 600 was pushing (understeering). With a gentle flick of the wrist, the steering was quickly reined in and we were on our way to the desired line through the turns.

Four-channel anti-lock braking helps keep the SL 550 in check, with 13.8-inch cross-drilled rotors up front and 12.6-inch discs in the rear. The SL 600, in turn sports 14.2-inch rotors in front and 13-inch platters out back. On mountainous portions of our test route, and despite a liberal use of engine compression braking, we still noticed an excessive smell of brake materials on the SL600 as we approached Palm Springs. We will keep an eye on this when we actually drive the car again in our press fleet.

The SL’s handling is accomplished by way of double control arms up front and a five-link rear suspension. A second-generation Active Body Control aids in eliminating body roll and dive. A “Sport” switch on the center console reduces roll further, and automatic ride-height adjustment allows the SL to hunker down while at higher speeds.

Bottom line

We loved the responsiveness and the aural cues of the V8. For that matter, we also liked the V12. The two SL Roadsters are at the same time so much alike, and so different. But to sum it up owners can be placed in two distinct corners: The SL 550 owner likes to arrive and in the words of “Nuke” LaLoosh in the movie “Bull Durham,” announce his presence with authority. The SL 600 owner knows what he’s packing. He just goes about making his entrance in a subtler manner.

Words and photos by Mark Elias