The GT S: Mercedes reclaims its sports-car roots

The new Mercedes-Benz GT S ($153,760, as tested) presents itself as alternative history: What if 1955 never happened? That was the year one of the factory’s 300 SLR’s, one of the dominant race cars of the era, did a fiery cartwheel into the grandstands at Le Mans, killing scores of spectators. In genuine sorrow Mercedes-Benz withdrew from racing and, after 300/190 SL production ended in 1963, lost interest in sports cars altogether for decades.

I don’t count the SLR McLaren (2003-2010) and neither should you.

What if that hadn’t happened? What if Rudolf Uhlenhaut and the lads had been allowed to keep banging away at the 300 SLR/W196 chassis, year after year, to shape a luxury two-seat sports car for road and track, built on the knowledge of each previous generation? An immortal, in the fashion of the Porsche 911: technically evolved and relentlessly revised while ever anchored to the antecedent.

What would that Mercedes-Benz sports car look like? Oh, never mind, here it is, surrounded by stunned elementary school kids. Not small and light, like a modern 911, but big and bad and broad, a bruiser, at 3,695 pounds, a light-heavyweight sports car wearing loaded Pirelli gloves. Not a rear engine layout, like Porsche, or an optimum midengine design like would-be foes Acura and McLaren, but a midfront layout, and with a vengeance. The GT S not only has that major length from front axle to dash but an enormous nose ahead of the front wheels.In some ways the nostalgia is heartbreaking, especially as ours was painted in this matte silver that made every angle like a Pete Lyons photograph. The form language—simplified, sculptural, almost naive, an aluminum skin drawn taut to strain against the wind—is the through-line, the illusion of continuity of spirit and style that leaps across the missing half-century. The thing is a Silver Arrow.

You don’t have to look far. Note how the tail of the car departs from the silhouette of a teardrop, drawn to a sharpness above the lava-red LED taillamps, the meeting of those two curves, deck and fender. That’s all Uhlenhaut Coupe. Note the smooth fuselage under the doors compared with the slashy, composite rocker panels. This being in the AMG division, a Black Series is likely in the works, with a big splitter, wicked spoiler and ground-effects bodywork. Too bad. I love the clinging silver singlet this car wears.

Let me clear away the dishes. The GT S (base price $129,900) goes up against the eternal Porsche 911, which can range from about $100,000 to $150,000 or more depending on options. Mercedes-Benz DAI, -1.37%  has called upon its AMG arm to deliver the sexy, which it sorely needs. For one thing the German home market regards Mercedes as a stodgy old brand, despite the hundreds of millions poured into Formula One and other motor sports since the company’s return in the late 1980s.

Also, due to the growth in global affluence, the high-end sports car market is crowded (Audi R8, Jaguar F-Type S) and growing (e.g., Acura NSX and McLaren 570S). Mercedes is following the Willie Sutton principle of robbing banks: That’s where the money is.

Based on elements of the SLS aluminum spaceframe and powered by a twin-turbo, 503-hp 4.0-liter V8 with dry sump lubrication, connected to a seven-speed transaxle by way of a carbon-fiber torque tube, the GT S is seriously fast, no doubt. As for turbo lag, yeah, doesn’t seem to be a problem. Peak torque of 479 pound-feet arrives at 1,750 rpm and plateaus joyously until 4,750 rpm, when the turbos are fully engaged and this thing is just barking. Figure 0-60 mph in 3.7 seconds and 12 flat in the quarter-mile, about.

Those numbers are strong, but not all-conquering compared with, say, a Porsche 911 Turbo. But that’s OK because the moment you touch a GT S you realize that Mercedes’s Porsche-fighter is nothing like the Porsche.

The GT S is not a temple to Apollonian virtues like the power-to-weight ratio. It’s more like a brothel of sated motor sports paraphilia. Big, staggered tires (19/20-inch, front/rear) on mesmerizing wheels; a 47/53 front/rear weight distribution; a creamy superabundance of tire-fogging. And that sound, like an Oklahoma thunderstorm is riding up your tuchis.

The Porsche is measured in milliseconds; the GT S, in heartbeats.

A few notes from the cockpit: The steering feel in the suede-wrapped wheel is light, precise, darty and reactive just off center and growing in effort over a half-turn. Snap the wheel left or right and the car’s long hood slews port and starboard like the prow of a PT boat. The GT S corners distinctly, with a mighty front-end bite that settles almost instantly into a lever cornering posture, and then it lasers into whatever radius it’s set upon, up to around 1 g lateral cornering. The calmness in extremity may be traced to the use of dynamic engine and transaxle mounts, computer controlled to counteract the twisting imparted to the chassis by the hellabig engine.

The sound engineers have imbued the GT S with a range of aural moods. In C mode (“controlled efficiency”) the idle note is warm, throbbing, a bit trucky, but the decibels are turned way down. This is the setting emotionally mature buyers will likely use most. So, two of them. Turn the dynamic mode selector to R for “race,” which activates the exhaust system bypass valves, and it sounds like bowling balls are falling out of the trunk. Booom-buddabuddhabuddha. Take an on ramp, unwind the wheel, grit your teeth, and push the revs spiraling toward seven grand. Careful…stroke a full power upshift. It sounds like someone trying to muffle a 12-gauge shotgun with a pillow. Pfoom!

The hood of the GT S looks as if there might be two engines underneath. Lift it and you will see, in the front of the compartment, a typical thermoplastic shroud, which conceals the air boxes and crash structure, some of which is cast magnesium to improve the car’s centralization of mass. Aft of that, nearly fully exposed, are the twin nautiluses of the turbochargers, fitted remarkably into the V of the engine, much like the turbo’ed super mills from Audi. Only a heat shield covers them. This engine is situated completely behind the front axle line, so properly the GT S is front midengine in layout.

It’s an emotional car so it’s not surprising the cabin has emotional issues. Dominating the view is the luscious, lux-y center console carve-out made of printed aluminum (the shape is supposed to bring to mind a perfect air intake duct from aerodynamics, a NACA duct). It’s fabulous but too big, forcing the stubby little gear shifter far back in the console, by the driver’s right elbow, where it’s actually a bit hard to reach.

Form dominates function with the console’s eight buttons, arrayed in two banks on either side of the gear selector. These controls are strangely and intriguingly random. The one closest to hand is not the Start button but the Drive Mode selector (C, S, S+ and R modes, with ratcheting thresholds of throttle response, stiffness out of the four-corner wishbones, steering sharpness and exhaust). The button below is the Start button. On the right bank, the first dial is for the audio volume. Talk about sticking it where it fits.

Right in the middle is the Mercedes’ current generation of big rotary selector, a handsome piece with a gloss-black palm rest that also provides a touch screen, so you can finger-trace to control functions in the main display. Curiously, there are not one but two Return buttons, about 2 inches apart. Did somebody forget they had one already?

This car is a sign of the times. Soon, if not already, whatever additional increases in performance car makers can achieve in sports cars will be irrelevant and unusable. Another half-second shaved off in the quarter-mile won’t bring owners any more satisfaction. What will matter more, and what buying decisions will be made of, is the richness of experience, the connection to the brand. The GT S brings a swingin’, Big-Merc mojo to compete with those flinty, anorexic track-day toys. I’m sure Herr Uhlenhaut would approve.