When Mercedes-Benz decided to enter Formula One in 1995, they couldn’thave picked a better partner than McLaren. The two worked together to create race cars that excelled on the track, and in their glory days (1998-1999) proved a veritable threat against Ferrari, BMW and others. But McLaren had an advantage of which Williams and Sauber did not have – they had the experience in building road vehicles, which came in handy when Mercedes-Benz wanted to build a real-world supercar, the SLR. Up until the introduction of the Bugatti Veyron, it was the McLaren F1 road car that held the title of world’s fastest car.
The news of the breakup of Mercedes-Benz and McLaren off the track comes as a big surprise. Less than a month ago, the two pulled the wraps off the open-top version of the SLR. Various sources reported that Mercedes was working on another project featuring a mid-engine layout, while others speculated that the German brand was contemplating buying McLaren outright. However, if Automotive News is correct, the purchasewon’t happen, and if the mid-engine supercar is built, it won’t have both names written across the tail. It is speculated that Mercedes-Benz was unhappy with the way that the SLR’s performance figures turned out (despite being very good, especially in 722 form), and that given the financial investment in the project, the SLR could’ve turned out better. There is a bit of truth to the argument, given that there are growing numbers of vehicles that not only cost less than the SLR, but are capable of out-accelerating it.
| 
|