It certainly does make me wonder why a Buick Grand National (which does 0-60 in 3.9 secs) was beat out by a 4,000 lb SL that does 0-60 in 6.3 secs.

Sounds like you had fun! I have to admit that these days I like using the rubber on my rear tires for more mundane driving... but I'm not so old that I don't remember the days when any excuse to make a fast car, well, go fast, was all I needed!

As an aside, if you want to point out to friends and foes the virtues of how well the 5.0 liter engine is used in the SL you can point to the Porsche 928 S4 - in 1987 it set two world land speed records (for production cars) at Bonneville. The S4 with automatic transmission does 0 - 60 in the same 6.3 that the SL500 does - but the 928 weighs over 500 pounds LESS.

Mercedes manages to get far more torque to the rear wheels in the R129 5.0 Liter than Porsche did with the 5.0 liter 928 (347 lbs/ft v. 317 lbs/ft)

(The 928 S4 has a top speed of around 163 - about the same as the R129 SL500 - but the SL is 'limited' I believe, to 155 MPH)

- michael
www.928TrackCars.com