(gentle music)
(motor humming) (light music)
- This is the SLR HDK.
It's a road car based on a race car,
a very special race car.
(intense music)
This race car.
This is the 722 GT prototype.
The last car designed
while Gordon Murray was at McLaren.
Developed in secret,
it is a fascinating hodgepodge of parts.
Things like the pedals, seat, wheels, rear wing,
uprights, hub nuts.
All of them came from the McLaren F1 GTR parts bin.
It never actually competed
because its sole purpose was to look gorgeous
and convince the top brass
at Mercedes that they should take the SLR racing one day.
And it did its job because there was eventually
a short-lived, One-Make race series.
But the 12 cars built for that were produced
by RML and were actually quite different
to this mad, beautiful prototype.
This is special and that's why almost 20 years later
it has inspired in McLaren Special Operations,
together with a small group of passionate owners,
to produce a road going version.
An SLR that looks and feels
like it's taken a wrong turn out of a pit lane
and ended up on a public highway.
But like the weather in this film, the SLR in general
and this high downforce kit version in particular,
it's got two sides to it.
The sunshine and the snow.
The mad 200-mile-an-hour supercar and the easygoing GT.
I love the fact
that this somehow makes bonkers seem so accessible.
It's like, I don't know,
a house trained Tyrannosaurus Rex
because on the one hand you've got
this extraordinary 5.4 liters supercharged V8
with all of its blood and thunder soundtrack
and the performance to back it up.
I mean, make no mistake at that.
But then it's actually quite easy to drive after a while.
with this automatic gearbox in here,
it means you just concentrate on the two pedals.
That's it, there is no point touching the paddles
in this, which seems weird.
You think, I really should do, but just don't bother.
I mean, we'll put it into manual and up to spoil like that.
Use the paddles and something happens eventually.
We've got some shift flight as well in this.
But after a while, you realize,
I mean the delay in changes is extraordinary.
Even worse on downshifts.
I mean, if a modern PDK is like a Samurai sword slicing
through the changes, this is,
it's like using a tenderizing mallet to do the same chore.
So, you just leave it in comfort.
It's what it wants.
The gearbox sort of,
you realize it doesn't actually matter after a while
because it's an engine that you drive on that huge swirl
of growling, snarling, torque.
The brakes, well, they sort of appear
to have no progression at all.
It's really very disconcerting the first time you use them.
But then like so much of this car,
you learn to work with them.
You learn their foibles and then it's a car
that well, you just can't help but enjoy.
It just puts a smile on your face.
It is a ridiculous car.
I sort of have to take my road tester's hat off
or at least get past all that because
there is plenty wrong with this.
Really.
A lot of the criticisms that were leveled
at it when it was launched still exist.
Yes, MSO has improved it and they would never say
that they have made it in any way perfect,
but actually now after all these years
it's a car that you can see why people love it.
Why after a while they just think it's such a lovable thing.
It's a car that is really easy to dismiss for what it isn't.
But actually once you accept what it is,
it's a car that's really easy to love.
I really like the fact that people care enough
about the SLR to do something like this with it.
And in a flurry of TLAs,
what has MSO done with the SLR to turn it into this HDK?
Well, they've done a lot.
Pretty much all the body work is altered from the nose
over the arches, down the amazing sculptural sides
with the chunky sills to the fresh rear bumper
and enormous new diffuser, all of it in carbon fiber.
There are large louvers and more gaping grills.
The whole thing sits 20 millimeters lower
and 60 millimeters wider
with bespoke ozed super charisma wheels completing
the race car vibe.
Open the boot and the wing isn't just for show either.
MSO isn't making any monstrous downforce claims,
but the fact the struts have been cleverly braced
and bonded into the chassis
on three points per side shows it means business.
The overall look is wild, but also rather svelte
and it has the polish
and precision execution of a factory car.
Obviously it's expensive.
Each one will cost just north
of a quarter of a million pounds to convert.
But, before you rush to check your bank balance,
I'm afraid they're all spoken for.
And then there is the paint job for this car.
Part NASCAR, part cartoon character, part pure work of art.
Yes, that is hand turned gold leaf.
You're either gonna love it or hate it.
You're either gonna see the fun in it,
the Dinaco blue or not get it at all.
The owners have decided to go
to town on their paint jobs as well.
One having his painted to look
like a World War II P-51 Mustang,
complete with toothy grin and fake rivets.
You can see why, it's a soundtrack really befitting
of a P-51 Mustang.
Ditching the original silences saved a whopping 30 kilos
and the new exhaust
with its slashed single exit is even switchable
between loud and full spinal tap.
It's a sound that you can really feel
with those side exit exhausts,
those equivalents of a an open fire just down by your feet
and you can feel it through the souls of your feet.
You feel it when you start up
with this amazing flip top on the gear selector down here.
It just emanates through the car.
In case you are wondering
about the trousers that go with the mouth,
they're pretty standard with torque remaining
at 575 pounds foot and just a mild uplift in power
to 626 bhp, thanks to better breathing.
I'd say that was ample.
The interior came in for quite a bit
of flack when this was launched 20 years ago as well
because at the time it was very much, well
like any other Mercedes really.
But with the benefit of time, obviously,
this is I think it aged pretty well.
It's obviously not like any current Mercedes really.
So, it has a little more of an air of the exotic
about it plus all the things that MSO has done.
So, we've got that rear carbon deck there, which looks
like it should always have been there to be honest.
And then we've got these lovely seats,
these carbon buckets which actually adjust kind
of almost a bit like the new McLaren Arturo
because of the sort of the way they rock back forth.
And you can get a really nice driving position.
Plus I love the fact these ones are trimmed in corduroy.
I really should have worn some corduroy trousers
to go with it and then you could've sort of locked them in
for that bit of added security.
Oh, corduroy, the technical fabric.
It is a really intimidating car to get
into to start with this because it's so huge.
And I mean this is 60 mil wider than a standard SLR
which is not a narrow car.
So on a road like this, you do occasionally kind
of feel yourself straying over the capsize
and hearing dunk duh dunk duh dunk.
They added a bigger power steering pump into this
which I was worried might have sort of made it feel
all too light on the front end.
But, obviously we've got the wider tracks
and not a bit of it.
It's of course hydraulically assisted power searing.
So, compared to modern cars
really there is an awful lot of feel still.
All that feedback, all that detail.
The engineers actually added in an extra U-J as well
just to smooth out the steering a little bit more.
However, the nose still feels a long way ahead
of you and it's a car that you need to pay attention to.
This is a car that you really have to drive positively.
The brakes, the steering, they need to be driven
with a certain amount of purpose,
certainly if you're gonna drive it quickly
on a road like this.
I think it sums up an awful lot about this car
that they could have made it quicker round a track.
So, this is just over three seconds quicker
than a standard SLR, around MSOs test track.
But they could have made it four seconds quicker.
However, then they would've lost some
of the feel that they wanted in this car.
Some of that race car for the road feel.
No, it doesn't make it
the most comfortable car on long journeys,
but that's not what this is about.
And it does still have some of the super GT to it.
The really sophisticated KW dampers do still
just take the edge off.
So although, you have bowls around and hunts over cambers,
it still has some of that usable nature to it, I think.
And this particular car with over 90,000 miles
on the clock has certainly done some long journeys
because it has to be one
of the most storied and special SLRs in existence.
This is PP-14 or pre-production 14.
It started off as the car that was sent
to the shaker rig.
That destroys most cars.
But because the SLR is built like, well,
a bit of a tank, it didn't destroy this.
So, they rebuilt it
and it went testing it had a massive shunt.
Ernardo going backwards into a barrier,
but still it survived.
They rebuilt it again.
PP-14 went back into testing for the SLR before being handed
over to the team that would become MSO.
Dampers, exhausts, body work, you name it,
it's developed it in the last 20 years
and in the process it's been repainted over and over again,
throwing on costumes like a one-man play
until it went back to square one, for this.
They took 14 layers of paint off this car
and then they had to alter the body work
as well back to standard.
And now after all that, it's fitting
that PP-14 is having perhaps its final lease of life.
Like this, the mad, joyful, quirky, and exuberant SLR HDK.
(light music) (engine rumbling)