COMEBACK KID

McLaren's Special Operations unit has some official upgrades for the misunderstood SLR - time to reassess McMerc's black sheep?

-  JASON BARLOW

The SLR was the offspring of a turbulent marriage and appeared just as the two parties responsible were preparing to divorce. Mercedes wanted to maintain fealty with its late Nineties Vision SLR concept and deliver some kind of Marvel Comics-style Super GT. McLaren was following the F1, an impossible feat, although no one ever described the SLR as its successor. That would have been daft. Nonetheless, Gordon Murray insisted on a fully flat underfloor which is why the SLR has that eyecatching side-exit exhaust. And he demanded 50/50 weight distribution, forcing the 5.4-liter, supercharged V8 into a front mid-engined configuration that elongated the car's shape.

Now remember that the SLR was launched into a supercar world that had recently been rearranged by the Ferrari Enzo and Porsche Carrera GT, both of which coursed with high-tech racing DNA, and the bonkers but beautiful newbie, the Pagani Zonda. The SLR couldn't compete with their superior handling smarts, despite its carbon-fibre chassis and structural rigidity, and road testers at the time grumbled about the tricky brakes, hyperactive steering, and its generally confrontational character. The McMerc SLR felt defiantly analog just as the digital era was dawning.

What might have been a problem back then is an opportunity now, and it's one that's being fully embraced by McLaren's Special Operations (MSO) division. A 100-strong outfit based in a usefully nondescript industrial estate in Woking, MSO has oversight on the world's billion-pound F1 population and has developed various outrageous one-offs (the X-1 and the X, amongst others). But it's also responding to a renewed interest among SLR owners for an infusion of modern McLaren know-how into the old charger - approaching 20, incredibly - as well as an appreciation that a spell in rehab might help address some of its wilder personality traits.