Mercedes Benz SL74 - Matt Garrett

Mercedes SL74, 7.4 Liter V12. 17K miles, collector owned, truly a flawless car. Ok, if you are not 100% familiar with Mercedes, you are probably asking yourself what the heck is this thing. Who was the wise guy that threw a spoiler and emblems on the back? If you struck it rich in the 90s, this would be one of the cars you may have sought out. That is what the first owner of this car did and money was no object as you are about to see. To put it simple, this is a true supercar. Spending a whopping 220,000.00, as this example here, would get you the king of all Mercedes cars to the year date of this car, 1997. What this car is, is a top optioned SL600 Sport with a 130K price tag that was upgraded by the Renntech Company (US AMG) to be a 575HP monster capable of acceleration, top speed, handling, endurance and stopping power only someone capable and willing to part with 220K was lucky enough to experience. This car was quoted in many tests as probably the most perfect car built given money no object. That little upgrade for perfection was 90,000.00 on top of the 130K price done when the car was new!

This engine is the original motor but the upgrade starts using this cars famous 6.0 400HP DOHC 48 Valve V12, but is now a 452 Cubic Inch (7.4 Liter), 575 Horsepower, 600 Ft Lb Torque monster with 505 Rear wheel horsepower. The 7.4 Renntech motor is a top end fire breathing machine that is capable of performance that even the top examples of crazy money exotics, and the most radical built street cars today have a tough time competing with. This car will go 192MPH and that is where the computer cuts it. I can tell you owning 700HP turbo cars that make 1K torque to the wheels, this car is a contender with anything less a mega mod single purpose near trailer car. Even some total race cars would have a tough time with this one. The best part is that it does it like a Mercedes, no noise, no smell, no quirks, no rattles, no poor idle, no loping, no driveline bucking, no crazy power band with poor low end, no lag, no overheating, no race fuel, does it with AC, heat and all the bells, and most important does it with no BS!. Just hit the gas at 50MPH, and if you have the traction control off, get ready to walk the rear end sideways a little and see 150MPH+ in a matter of a few seconds. Its actually a bit scary as you simply do not expect it out of a car that seems so docile everywhere else. This car would get non driver types killed pretty quick. My past regular SL600 is not even in the same world as this car and my past Renntech modified SL55, although very capable, would not do what this car does either. I say 50MPH, as that is about as slow as you can go to use the full power of this car. From a dead stop, I have no clue how you would actually get any good traction with the car using full power, but it is claimed to do a low 12 at 119 in a C&D test of a 4 speed auto version. Now this one is a 5 speed, so you have a quicker ratio set and another gear. I would say this car could do way better than that with tires, but I am not going to try. This is just an FYI and theoretical thing. The car is a collector to me, not an abuser. I felt out the power and capabilities as much as I desire. It is simply impressive beyond what I can say here.

Now here is the real amazing part, and I have followed this for years; Although this particular car is an unaltered from the way it was created at Renntech, unadulterated collector show car that will never see this in my watch, the other examples of the Renntech 7.4 I have followed since I first learn of these cars in the 90s have proven to be more reliable than Mercedes later AMG cars. Keep in mind Renntech is a spin off of AMG people, sharing all the same knowledge but taking it a step further. This is an endurance built car where some examples have seen 150K miles beating to the extreme before needing any refreshing. That goes to reason as the 48V V12 in stock 6.0 form is still more reliable than an SL55 with a heat maker on top or SL65 with less valves, smaller engine and turbo chargers today. The 6.0 is not as fast stock, but really a better motor with no blowers or turbos. The 7.4 is considered one of the most bulletproof high power engines ever done and its normally aspirated and has 48 valves!. It is also the engine used in the CLK-SLR Race car. This is the finest and most refined engine making the most power I have seen without the hot rod BS. I have seen more power, but it always comes with a major compromise. No compromise here at all.

You will see below but I will go over a few things that make up this car here; This SL74 also has many other upgrades other than the 575HP 452 CID Engine. The engine was built with the finest parts made; Titanium Rods, high performance intake and exhaust camshafts (4), ported intake and exhaust, modified intake, larger and lighter (Mercedes F1) intake and exhaust valves plus a full stainless steel high flow exhaust matched to the engine. The 5 speed automatic transmission has been upgraded to handle the power, a massive aluminum radiator along with a massive oil cooler and transmission cooler with a separate electric fan just for it also have been added. Suspension wise, the car has a larger front and rear sway bar, but retains the V12s very nice and adaptive hydraulic system. You will notice the upgraded 4 link heim joint rear end. This was another expensive upgrade that helped the car handle, not to mention strengthened the car too. Pretty neat. This car also has the front and rear Alcon Brake option. This was about 10K itself providing the car with the best high speed brake made. Notice you do not see cross drilled rotors. These are slotted Alcon rotors on this car. They knew what they were doing here. The wheels are OZ 18x9 + 18X11.5, the car has an AMG rear spoiler, + AMG front and rear bumpers. These look just like the original sports, but they are lighter, have the exhaust cut out, brake ducts and more. Even more money spent on that for just the sake of it I guess! Pretty crazy actually. All in all, this was a 90K package on this car done in 1998, all documented in hard copy, all backed up by the gentlemen at Renntech. As of today, they do not know where a lower mile example of a fully equipped 7.4 car like this is. Very few were done at this level and this very well may be the best example remaining. Car and driver did a test of an SL74 (and that was a 4 speed transmission version so a bit slower) and showed it to go from 0-150 and back to 0 again in 28 seconds. Pretty amazing, and that was beating out cars like a Hennesey Venom 600, an more super tuner mega monsters of the day. I have no clue what the exact #s on this car are, but look at the other cars in my stable. For well rounded all out performance in every arena, this car is the king, hands down.

The SL600 (R129 93-01), at least to me, are the last of the really good Mercedes, thus I have one in my collection. The high power addition of this car is really nice, but just having a low mile nice SL600 Sport of 97-01 is owning one of the best cars ever. Being an obvious American car fan, I can only say that these cars cross the bridge, and these R129 V12 cars are probably the finest examples of European cars ever built. The quality in these things has long since gone down replaced by plastic low grade parts. I guess this is why you see the newer Mercedes taking the bloodbaths they have. Now technology is up in the newer cars of course, but the engineering combined with quality, endurance and workmanship of the Mercedes R129 is probably the pinnacle of Mercedes Benz. The S600 of 96-99 is also another great example of Mercedes. Remember, I have owned an SL55 too. http://www.mcsmk8.com/03-SL55/03-SL55.html This older body style lower technology car is superior to that SL55 less the latest and greatest bells and whistles, Navigation, integrated hard top, etc. I sold that car to go back to one of these as I just got tired of all the plastic like the hood, headlamps, door parts, engine parts, etc, plus I got tired of watching Mercedes constantly losing money. You could not stop it and that is unfortunate. With this car, it had its loss too but at this point and in this condition, its appreciating. These were real cars and I doubt you will ever see this quality in any make car for a very long time to come.

Oh yes, the metal surfaces on the car including the hard top are 100% original, untouched, factory paint (on the assy. line) without a single ding, impression, wave or imperfection anywhere. That is very important to me, more so than all the neat additions this car has.

The car has all the options the V12 SL600 Sports came with. This includes the Bose CD system, Integrated Telephone, and the continuous list of bells and whistles standard to an SL600 that encompasses everything Mercedes offers. This is also a 1997 car. If you know your 129s, the 97-01 are the cars to have with the 5 speed automatic, improved wiring harness, better brakes (does not apply to this car with the superior Alcons) and many things that were improved over time that the early 129s sort of had issues with and deemed these cars as temperamental. Owning these cars in the past, I would say that the later R129s like this are as reliable as any high end luxury car could ever be. This car also has 2 hard tops! A Panoramic Hard Top and the Regular Hard Top.