{"id":94864,"date":"2014-03-31T22:46:28","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T20:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gtspirit.com\/?p=94864"},"modified":"2014-10-09T15:18:05","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T13:18:05","slug":"mercedes-slr-mclaren-mso-edition-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gtspirit.com\/2014\/03\/31\/mercedes-slr-mclaren-mso-edition-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes SLR McLaren MSO Edition Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Define \u2018baptism of fire\u2019. No, wait \u2013 I\u2019ll do it for you. It\u2019s a cold January evening, and a man from McLaren has just handed you the keys to a car that looks like this. As you clamber aboard \u2013 inelegantly, it has to be said, thanks to the lifting doors \u2013 a few spots of rain pepper the windscreen. You ease out of the car park, suddenly and painfully aware that you have no idea where the enormous bonnet ends \u2013 or, indeed, how much ground clearance that jutting bumper has. Nor can you easily spot any of the car\u2019s four corners, given that this thing measures a full two metres in width and you\u2019re sitting on the left-hand side in a right-hand-drive country.<\/p>\n

Darkness has fallen, and as you slip onto a motorway heaving with jinking, stop-start rush-hour traffic, the shower turns biblical. Wind and rain lash the windscreen, and standing water has reduced both visibility and stopping distances to just a whisker more than sod all. Oh, and if you even think about straying beyond about half throttle, the back end decides it\u2019d like to pop round and say hi. <\/p>\n\r\n