How an SLR McLaren blitzed a Ford GT, Porsche 911 Turbo, BMW M6 and Alpina B5, Shelby Daytona Coupe, Corvette Z06 and Bentley Flying Spur to give us the London Land Speed Record
175mph in the middle of London:
by Steve Sutcliffe, with photography by Stan Papior and Mitch Peshavria
So although the idea itself may have been simple, its execution would be anything but. We wanted, if possible, to clock 200mph – legally – within the confines of the Greater London area, and as far as we knew there were just two places where we could do it. One of these is a little place by the name of Heathrow; the other is London City Airport.
Given that Heathrow is the busiest airport in the universe, we knew that realistically we had just one shot: to persuade the good folks at London City Airport, right next door to Docklands and within sight of St Paul’s Cathedral, to let us in.
Enter Autocar publishing manager Paul Garlick, who began negotiations with LCA back in January this year. Finding the right day was always going to be the hardest part because of the airport’s busy international flight schedule, but six months later, on a roasting hot Saturday afternoon, we made it.
Amid a small army of security people, TV news crews, local radio station presenters and firemen, we had the runway to ourselves for four hours. Which meant that, at last, our idea of setting a brand new London Land Speed Record was going to happen.
Trouble is, the runway at LCA isn’t exactly the longest of its type. Give or take an inch, it’s pretty much exactly one mile long, and even a Bugatti Veyron would struggle to reach 200mph in that space.
Actually, that’s not entirely true; it could easily reach 200mph in a mile, but then it would have no room to stop – and at the end of the runway at LCA there isn’t a field like there is at most other airports. Instead, you go straight into the River Thames.
So the 200mph barrier wouldn’t be broken. But we still had a heck of a good group of cars to compare, as well as a little bit less than a mile of speed-limit-free asphalt on which to run them. And a local man of the cloth, the Reverend Robert Avey, who would act as referee for the Guinness attempt.
Within the group there were several key scores to be settled. Would the Mercedes SLR McLaren – all £317,000 of it – take care of the Ford GT, for instance?
We all suspected the 612bhp McMerc would be quickest, but at the same time we knew that the Ford would be no walkover. Equally, we wondered how close the amazing new Porsche 911 Turbo would get to the top of the tree, and also whether the BMW M6, with its sometimes fairly liberal speed limiter, might give the 911 something to think about.
And there was one car we knew almost nothing about. All we did know about the Shelby Daytona coupé was that if it went even half as good as it looked and sounded, not even the SLR would be safe.
As for the Corvette Z06 and Alpina B5, they had almost 1000bhp between them and would give the others a run for their money. And Bentley? We’ve already hit 208mph in a Flying Spur, so a bright red one was duly delivered.
To comply with the Guinness rules, we had to do three identical runs in each car and measure the average speeds of all three runs using our regular GPS data-logging equipment.
And each car would need to travel over the exact same distance; in other words, we had to set the same starting point and the same braking point for each car.
The Alpina went first and without much drama, but with an awful lot of mechanical sophistication, logged an effortless three-way average of 151.5mph.
On its best run the 493bhp B5 clocked 155.4mph, proving just how much the wind was gusting on the runway that day, hence the need for an average over three runs.
Next up was the Bentley, all 552bhp, £117,500 and two and a bit tonnes of it – and quite a performer it was, too. The Flying Spur blew its way through 100mph in 10.5sec and eventually to an average of 156.6mph with such ease that we had little idea how fast we were actually travelling.
Until it came to the braking point, when the Bentley’s tail rose towards the sky and its nose all but ground itself into the runway. Stopping the Bentley within the confines required was, shall we say, quite an eye-opener on run number three.
The deliciously named Shelby Daytona was next, and if there was a prize for loudest exhaust note of the decade this car would win it at a canter. With its 500bhp Roush-tuned V8, the £91,650 Daytona coupé may have been from the old school of car design, but it was also quick with a capital F.
Away from the line, it left two enormous great rubber marks as its rear tyres struggled for grip. Three fairly cautious gearchanges later and, with my ears just about ready to split, the Shelby hit 159mph before the braking point. It felt more like 259mph from behind the wheel. Fantastic.
To put that into context, the massively rapid new 911 Turbo, which was next up, was only 2.6mph quicker in the event. Rare are the occasions on which you can accuse a 911 Turbo of lacking power.
But in this instance, fast though it felt in isolation, the 911 simply lacked grunt beside its quicker rivals. Off the line it was incredible, taking a mere 3.6sec to hit 60mph, but beyond three figures it was merely impressive. In the end it hit 161.6mph, which was good, but not quite as crushing as we’d expected.
The real surprise came when the theoretically slower BMW M6 beat the Porsche by a whisker. In spite of its speed limiter, the BMW hit 162.3mph on the runway, its seven-speed sequential gearbox picking gears off with such precision that over three runs it recorded 162.5mph, 162.1mph and 162.3mph – easily the most consistent bunching of the day. BMW’s M Division will no doubt be quietly smug about this.
On the other hand, the M6 (as well as the 911 Turbo) got thumped by the Corvette on the strip. The Z06 is one of those cars that feels ever so slightly rabid in its delivery, often struggling to maintain traction, even in third gear on a dry surface. But it’s also monumentally fast, wheelspin or not.
After a wrestling match with the six-speed manual gearbox the like of which even Kendo Nagasaki would have been proud, the Corvette hit 165.4mph, with a best of 167mph. Beside that, the 911 Turbo was nowhere.
And so to the cars we’d been waiting for, the battle of the big hitters: the Ford GT versus the Mercedes SLR McLaren.
Theoretically the McMerc should have walked it. Despite weighing a broadly similar amount to each other (both around 1750kg), the SLR has more power (617bhp versus 500), more torque, traction control and an extra gear. But the mid-engined Ford has better traction, and in this instance we suspect it was running with, shall we say, an engine at the peak of its fitness.
By 100mph they were virtually inseparable, the Ford needing 8.6sec to reach three figures, the SLR just 8.4sec. But by the time 150mph had registered the sheer grunt of the McMerc was beginning to tell and it was already 0.6sec quicker (16.5sec versus 17.1sec).
Yet the vagaries of aerodynamics still had one key card to play, and as they continued to accelerate past the speed at which the likes of the 911 Turbo and M6 had quit, the Ford’s more slippery shape, specifically its lack of frontal area, allowed it to reel the SLR back in.
At the line it was desperately close – so close that on the Ford’s best run it actually levelled with the SLR’s worst figure. But the McMerc went as high as 175.7mph on one run, and averaged out over all three runs the results read: Ford GT 173.8mph, Mercedes SLR McLaren 175.1mph.
Had there been another half a mile to play with, the GT may have pinched it and driven itself into the record books. But on the day it was the SLR that was quickest, and not even the folks from Guinness could argue with that. The London Land Speed Record was ours. (And thanks hugely to the people from London City Airport for letting us do it.)