Google Street View Car Races Mercedes Supercar

 By 
Stan Schroeder
 on 
Google Street View Car Races Mercedes Supercar
Google Street View Car is pitted against a Mercedes supercar on Top Gear's test track. Source: YouTube/TopGear Credit: YouTube/TopGear

Google Street View Car isn't exactly built for speed. It's better for slow, steady neighborhood rides while collecting 360-degree imagery of its surroundings (and, sometimes, Wi-Fi data). So, how would it fare against a Mercedes Benz SLS AMG Black Series with 631 horsepower and a top speed of 196 miles per hour?

Simply put, it wouldn't. The Mercedes leaves it in a cloud of smoke and burned tire fragments. The feature is, in part, thanks to Top Gear, which brought the Google Street View Car to its test track to take the imagery and place it on Google Maps. To spice things up, showrunners pitted the car against the extremely expensive Mercedes supercar for a virtual "race."

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To find it, type "Top Gear Test Track" into Google Maps and drag Google's yellow pegman, located in the upper left corner of Maps, onto the map.

You can virtually stroll around the test track with the Mercedes, which is driven by Top Gear's infamous Stig. We can call this a 1:1 -- the Mercedes may be faster, but the Street View Car takes nicer photos.

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