Hello!

I've been lurking for a while and finally decided to post. I've had a very good year(financially, but in other ways too) and I've decided to reward myself with a nice car. After about two months of deliberation I've narrowed it down to three different cars - the SLS being one of them, but now I'm having a serious issue with the SLS. What is it like parking that thing? The one I checked out at the dealership seemed like the wingspan was pretty big. It's not like a normal car where I could open the door slightly and squeeze in... I have to be able to open the door completely. I live in the South Bay of Northern California. A place where street parking is almost unheard of, and almost everything is in lots. I don't want to limit my ability to drive the car to where I can get a valet(pretty scarce outside San Francisco.) I asked the guy at the Merc Dealership and he said that it wasn't a problem, and you can open the door even if there is a car parked close to you, but when I asked him to demonstrate - he told me the only salesman allowed to drive the SLS was out that day(BS I think.)

Any SLS owners out there? Have any troubles parking the car? or getting into the car if someone parked too close? I could also imagine there being people who know the car has gulwing doors and purposely park close to me, making it a VERY impractical car.

 

IanLOL,
the sales guy is correct. the door design on the SLS allows they to be opened even when the car next to u parked fairly close to it. i can only tell u that the wingspan is much smaller than it looks like & u think. just look twice how deeply the door cuts in the roof on top.

i hope this pic would help to.

happy hunting!

 

Based on the drawing and some simple math, when the door swing open and at its widest dimension, you need about 11.5" of space to open the gull wing doors.

(2664-2078) / 2 / 25.4 ~ 11.5"

 

from personal experience in my garage, the sls doesnt need much space to open the doors. but parked too near the next car isnt a good idea too, its asking for dings!

 

that would be when I call my boy to come with his tow truck who drags the person who blocked your cars car down the parking lot and into traffic...

 

You're giving other people too much credit. Most mortals wouldn't know what they're looking at.

 

Simple fix, buy the convertible!!! Worse case you can Bo and Luke Duke it across the trunk. lol