Something Wicked This Way Comes
As the Black rolls off the ramps and into London’s early evening gloom, the countdown begins. One single night. For all our begging and cajoling, that’s all the time Mercedes has given us in the Black. Oh, and if it leaves London, mustachioed German heavies will turn up at Top Gear HQ and murder us in new and interesting ways. The most powerful AMG Merc ever, the SL65 Black Series, the car christened "Der Beast" by its Frankenstein-esque creators, and we’re limited to one night in the most congested, cramped city in Europe.
And just to make things more interesting, the previous day saw the heaviest snowfall in Britain in 20 years. Snow that’s freezing rapidly into sheets of ice on the roads, making 670 hp and rear-wheel drive look a tad suicidal. Still, one night. The clock is ticking. Let’s head underground.
The Blackwall Tunnel seems a good place to start. We spear south under the Thames, a thousand rings of dim, flaxy streetlight whipping backward over the Black’s flanks as it dives deeper below London. There is noise, and that noise is…whistling. The car is whistling. It’s an ominous, unearthly noise, a murderous chorus of Roger Whittakers rising and falling as the turbos suck frozen air through the tunnel’s south entrance and spit it out behind. As the lights on the rev counter flash, climb and glow to red, the Roger Whittaker medley subsides. Now there’s raw mechanical noise, a dozen cylinders threshing a metallic, overdriven chorus. Speed, too. The increments on the speedo are ticking off with alarming haste as the Black barrels out of the tunnel and back into the London night.
Full Article: Top Gear – Something Wicked This Way Comes
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[Source: GermanCarForum]
