"We tried shooting this test three times." "And each time the weather did its best to thwart us." "In November it rained too hard for Neil to shoot." "And remember Neil's Welsh, so he's actually allergic to the sun." "In December it snowed, which was no good." "And we also used an M6 convertible that time." "But it was so wobbly, compared to the SL, that when we were booked for January, I used a coupe." "Whereupon it snowed again." "So we drove as far south as possible to find green verges." "So this is the M6 and the SL63 with zero continuity." "Beginning in sunny, beautiful Cornwall." "I want you to imagine that the year is 1988." "And that I'm wearing shoulder pads, and braces, and that kind of stuff, and carrying a Filofax." "And we've decided to get together the fastest BMW 6" "Series and the fastest Mercedes SL." "Those would have been, according to my memory bank, the M635 CSi the 500 SL." "Together, those two cars would have had a power output of just over 500 horsepower." "Fast forward to 2013, and their equivalents, the SL63 and the new M6, have over 1100 horsepower." "Sometimes, I find it difficult to justify cars like this." "Because they're not sports cars, and they're not full on GT cars." "So let's find out what they're actually like to use." "And whether they're just too powerful and too much for modern motoring." "But I suspect, they're actually rather good fun." "But every cloud has a silver lining." "And the upside here is that after two aborted tests, I've done lots of miles in both of these cars." "And discovered some very interesting things." "First of all, the Mercedes SL is what everyone thinks of as being a bit of a barge." "If I showed you SL Mercedes versus BMW M6 on a piece of paper, you'd assume that the Merc was the big flabby one, and that the M6 was the smaller, lighter, sharper one." "That is not the case." "The SL is entirely made of aluminium." "It's actually lighter, or pretty much as light, as the M6." "And yet it has a very heavy electric hood mechanism in it." "The upshot is a car that drives quite unlike its predecessor." "And that was a car that I ran for a year and really thoroughly enjoyed." "This car is stiff." "It's agile." "It just feels really quite sporting in a way that you wouldn't expect of an SL." "We can't discuss this car without discussing its looks, can we?" "Because it's not that pretty a machine." "It's very effective." "And I'll come to all of its dynamic plus points in a minute." "But I struggle to say it's good looking." "OK, fully AMGed up with fancy matte paint, and some bits and bobs, and a carbon plaque hanging off it." "It's great." "But then for 140,000 pounds, it should look pretty great." "From in here, it really feels like a 140,000 pound car." "The cabin is beautiful and expensive." "It feels more expensive than the BMW's cabin, as well, to me." "And also, you can actually fathom the controls, because it doesn't have iDrive." "The clever thing about the SL is that, in my position, you can actually review this car as a coupe, if you want to." "We're in the middle of winter." "It's just about snowing now." "It's horrid, so I didn't even think about the fact that the roof goes down." "And I could review it as a convertible, as well." "It just doesn't even feel like the roof comes off, at the moment." "It's incredibly strong." "To me, with the roof up, this thing feels more rigid than the M6." "I don't understand why, but maybe that's because it's got this clever aluminium construction." "The powertrain in the Mercedes is extraordinary." "Just a little bit more power than the BMW." "Just over 560 horsepower, but the torque is extraordinary;" "900 newton-meters, that's 663 foot-pounds of torque in real money." "And that just means that the car has on-demand acceleration of a quantity that is difficult to use on the public road." "It's just so fast." "Mercedes probably don't want me to say this, but this car is more accelerative than an SLS." "And this is supposed to be the cruiser." "You sit nice and low in the car." "The steering wheel comes to meet you." "You can set yourself up like you're in a sports car." "It really is impressive." "The electric power steering, yes, it feels over light and lacking in any kind of real connection." "But, and I say this quite a lot, after five minutes driving it, I can place it exactly where" "I want to put it." "The motor just sounds oh, superb." "Just wonderful, glorious V8." "Loads of noise out the back." "Makes the BMW feel a bit contrived, I have to say." "Overall performance?" "Well, Neil and I have been in convoy for the last few days." "He's insistent the BMW's quicker, but he's wrong." "This is a faster car than an M6." "So I've driven these things on motorways." "I've driven them fast, slow." "I've driven them on a bit of circuit." "I've driven them on the road." "I've done skiddy stuff in them." "I've just pretty much done everything that you can do in an M6." "Yesterday, for example, I did about 450 miles during the day, on a mixture of roads." "And I came away with what I think is quite a strange conclusion for me." "And that is I prefer this car to an M5." "Why do I prefer it to an M5, even though it's got this whopping price premium over the four-door car?" "I love the way it looks." "It kind of has a character all of its own." "I describe it as being a little bit GTI like, actually." "The way that the gear changes are so immediate." "The way the car feels massive and, yet, still actually quite chuckable, is quite GTI like." "And, of course, being two-wheel drive, it has none of that car's traction." "So it wants to go sideways everywhere." "This engine, I think, oddly enough-- because it spends so much time trying to be characterful and throw odd fake noises at you through the cabin-- it's a bit contrived, at times." "But there's no denying the effectiveness of a twin-turbo engine of this swept capacity that can rev to over 7,000 RPM." "And compared to the Merc, it has got a throttle-response advantage." "Having those turbos in between the V definitely gives you a throttle-response advantage." "Although, I don't really feel it that much on the road." "Because the Merc's got so much extra torque." "560 horsepower in this thing." "502 foot-pounds of torque, those are monster numbers, monster." "But then this thing weighs 1,925 kilograms." "So it's a right old lump." "But the performance on the road is just the majestic." "There's torque, so you can just mooch past stuff." "This double-clutch gear box is really good in auto mode." "But incisive, and fast, and immediate when you want to change gear yourself." "You sit low in the car." "It's a classic BMW cabin." "Bangle is gone now." "So everything's sort of angled towards me." "I feel like I'm the center of the environment here." "And I want to feel that way." "It's a great GT car in the classic sense, although its GT credentials are undone by a couple of little things." "First of all, it's actually quite noisy in the cabin sometimes, at speed." "It's got a lot of tire noise." "It's the tire noise that affects it." "And it's very surface sensitive." "So if you pick up just the wrong surface, it's noisier in here than it is in the SL." "Which is surprising because the SL doesn't actually have a roof." "The other thing is the structure of the car." "It doesn't feel absolutely, enormously strong." "I'm sure it passes every crash test imaginable." "And it's a very safe car." "But now and again, when you thump it over a bump, there's a shimmy that comes through the body and the steering column takes a bit of a wobble." "Now, you're probably wondering why we didn't use an M6 cab verses the SL?" "Well, partly because I messed up on the booking." "Sorry about that." "But I'm glad that we didn't." "Because I drove an M6 cab before Christmas, in one of the failed attempts to shoot this piece." "And it did wobble too much." "It wobbled so much that it wasn't actually an adequate rival for the SL." "This definitely feels like an M car, as well." "It feels special." "It feels a bit naughty." "It's got a lovely look to it, lovely stance on the road." "Cabin, lots of high quality materials." "As I said, nicely driver-centric." "IDrive I still don't get." "I mean, it's just utterly baffling, what's going on up here." "But when you get the phone hooked up, and you can listen to DAB, and the nav's directing you on the head-up display-- you do think to yourself, I could just drive to Geneva, and it wouldn't be a problem at all." "Because fuel consumption is so much better now, with the twin-turbo motor, we've got some range." "So again, more of a GT car." "And I would say that I haven't played around with all of these driver control things, as well." "You've got three engine modes, three suspension modes, three steering modes." "I just leave the thing in all comfort, on the road." "That means that if you absolutely hammer it over a bumpy A or B road, you probably will start to feel the car float a bit." "But I don't mind that." "I just don't want the really harsh ride." "In the softest mode, on British roads, this is actually quite a surprisingly comfortable car." "Apart from that wee bit of noise." "Anyhow, enough talking." "Let's go fast." "Summer tires, over 500 horsepower, rear-wheel drive, and slush bring inevitable consequences." "Both cars have mechanical locking diffs." "And they will both drift [INAUDIBLE] standards." "In these conditions, the traction control really never stops working." "I reckon you'd do a set of rear break pads in about a month." "The BMW's less severe torque makes it easier to slide." "But the SL still runs it very, very close." "Fleetwood Mac sang about making loving fun, but these two make drifting fun." "The SL doesn't make life easy for itself." "To my eyes, it should look better than it does." "Yes, the AMG treatment helps, but everyone we asked said they preferred the way the M6 looks." "But then, within the context of this test, the M badge is a little misleading, isn't it?" "Because you'd expect it to be the sharper car of the two, when actually it feels bigger and looser." "The SL can be a roadster and a coupe." "Yes, you can buy an M6 cab, but it wobbles too much." "The Merc's engine is more impressive than the BMW's." "But the M6, somehow, has a kind of two-wheel drive Nissan" "GT-R appeal to it." "If I had to choose one, I'd take the M6." "But I'd probably spend half the year wishing" "I'd taken the SL." "Both are cracking cars." "[REVVING]"