It's incompatible but not unusual, because when the cold weather really bites, the city of Kiruna becomes a playing field for Europe's automotive development engineers. The local hotels are littered with men in garish jackets that bear names like Bosch, Continental and Mercedes. And it's impossible to drive for more than an hour without spotting a top-secret prototype bedecked in camouflage clothing. If you're a spy photographer and not afraid of the cold, you can visit this tiny town on the fringe of the Arctic Circle called Shangri-La.
Driving a 563-horsepower supercar like the 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG in the ice and snow should be easy, don't you think? No one else up here under the Northern Lights seems to be having any problems. It won't be like driving that Ferrari F430 Spider across Italy like I did a few years ago, or even like whipping that Ferrari 612 Scaglietti across India (with a roll of toilet paper in hand almost all the way), but it should be doable, right?
We crawl out of Kiruna, a city of around 18,000 people. Sweden's most northerly city built its fortune on the production of iron ore, but more recently it's diversified into ecotourism and even space exploration — Kiruna has signed a deal with Virgin Galactic to house Spaceport Sweden. It would be easy to imagine the astronauts becoming confused, as so desolate is the countryside that you could be forgiven for thinking you'd already reached the moon.
We're running on standard winter tires, similar to those used throughout Europe at this time of year. Studded tires would be more sensible for the conditions, but they'd provide less of a challenge for the stability control system and less of a test of my manhood. Today, concentration and finesse top the agenda.
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