Mercedes-AMG SL 63 Shooting Brake Unofficial Concept Taps Into Ferrari, Porsche Customer Base

Nowadays, the word crossover is mostly used to describe unibody chassis passenger vehicles that look more or less like their rough terrain-capable SUV siblings but are mostly focused on road driving. However, this North American-originating notion was initially introduced to talk about vehicles that mix assets belonging to multiple segments. And, if you look at the higher market segments, such rare birds still grace our car people lives. Cue to the Mercedes-AMG SL 63 Shooting Brake, an independent pixel proposal bringing us a two-door wagon iteration of the Germans’ flagship roadster.

The seventh iteration of Mercedes’ iconic SL roadster is less than a year old and yet this rendering proposes a derivative that would gracefully accompany the two-door, open-top model the Germans build. And when you think about it, the work of digital artist Sugar Chow (aka sugardesign_1) does partially fall in line with the philosophy of the three-pointed star. Allow us to explain.

While two-door shooting brakes—this would be the traditional definition of the segment—are normally reserved for coachbuilders or the stratospheric end of the market, more recent times have seen Mercedes using this S/B label for five-door wagons with sloping roof lines.

Alas, the CLS (E-Class-sized offering) no longer comes in the S/B body style, so the only Merc of the sort you can currently get is the second-gen CLA compact, albeit with this missing from the North American market.

As a result of the said shift, customers looking for a five-door shooting brake have their needs catered to by Porsche, via both the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) Panamera and the EV Taycan. In a way, Ferrari also used to play this game (in two-door form), via the FF and the GTC4 Lusso that succeeded it. However, these are now a thing of the past, making room for the Purosangue, which should become the most dynamic crossover out there once it debuts this September.

How many doors would you like for your Mercedes-AMG SL 63 wagon?

Now, some of you might experience a bit of deja-vu while checking out this Mercedes-AMG SL 63 Shooting Brake rendering. And that’s because the said artist has previously dreamt up a five-door iteration of the SL Shooting Brake (I personally feel that one is even more of a treat to the eyes).

However, this fresh proposal sits closer to the real car, which, by the way, has moved to a standard 2+2 configuration for the present iteration (this was an option in the past), which is the first one to be developed directly by the Mercedes-AMG performance arm of the company.

However, while the current R232-codenamed SL features a soft top, this Shooting Brake creation restores the metallic roof of its predecessor, albeit in fixed form.

Now, the only chance for an SL Shooting Brake to come to life would have to involve the said coach building path. So, we’ll be here, waiting for labels like, say, Netherlands-based Niels van Roji Design, to bring this fantasy to life.

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