2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG test on ice

2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Picture

Driving a 563-horsepower supercar like the 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG in the ice and snow should be easy, don't you think? No one else up here under the Northern Lights seems to be having any problems. It won't be like driving that Ferrari F430 Spider across Italy like I did a few years ago, or even like whipping that Ferrari 612 Scaglietti across India (with a roll of toilet paper in hand almost all the way), but it should be doable, right?
Our 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS rolls out of the truck dressed in bright red. The Mercedes engineers brought it to Kiruna for a final cold-weather systems check before production begins in March and now they're done. I've been tasked with driving the car 250 miles south across the Arctic Circle to the town of Arvidsjaur, which, in terms of latitude, is on a par with northern Alaska.

When I first saw the SLS on its stand at the auto show, I wasn't sure about it. The macho nose looked slightly at odds with the curvaceous rump, which itself seemed an awkward pastiche of the iconic Mercedes-Benz SL300 of the 1950s. But here in the wild, smeared in ice and snow, the Gullwing looks much more effective. The SLS might not have the flamboyance of the cartoonlike Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren — a car I've driven many times — but it still has plenty of impact and those gullwing doors are pure theatre.