Back in April, Mercedes showed off its new roadster, baby brother to the AMG SL 63. But this one was missing the brand's typical inline six or V8 sitting under that long hood. Instead, it packed a four-cylinder turbo with F1 tech inside. An electric motor was attached to the turbo's shaft between the turbine wheel on the exhaust side and the compressor wheel on the intake side. The motor drives the shaft of the turbo directly and spins up the compressor wheel before exhaust gasses do, improving throttle response.
Lewis Hamilton's F1 car uses the same deal, and now it appears that Mercedes-Benzis working on tech that'll be a departure from that: a full-on hybrid.
Strangely enough, this big SL has no camo on it at all. That confirms a number of specifics. First, changes will be purely mechanical. Second, this car will not share any characteristics with the upcoming AMG SL, which we expect to have 800 or more horsepower. There's also a bit of Mercedes-Benz design here confirming that further. The pipes on Merc's cars typically give away how powerful they are under the hood.
Round pipes? It's more than likely you're looking at a more chilled-out version of the car. Square pipes? Full kill mode. As fast as Mercs will get this side of Lewis and George's personal cars, and naturally the AMG model. There are some exceptions, like the Mercedes-AMG GLE 53 we have as a tester for review this week that has round pipes.
Given that Mercedes has debuted the AMG SL 43, we're inclined to call this hybrid an SL 53 until further notice. No badging was present on the car. Our spies report the engine is a four-banger borrowed from the upcoming Mercedes-AMG C63 along with the brand's plug-in hybrid tech. Of course, power outputs are also a mystery at this point.
What we do know is that this car will likely sit above the AMG SL 43 that debuted earlier this year. Meaning it should also produce far more than 375 hp and 354 lb-ft of torque. We don't have any particulars on when the car is expected to officially debut, but we'd guess that it will come towards the end of this year or early 2023.