Leaks happen. In the automotive space, they usually happen when a car company is spotted testing or transporting a model it hasn’t revealed yet. That’s almost exactly what took place here as a random account posted photos of Brabus’ unreleased “Bodo” supercar on a niche subreddit. The ironic icing on the cake is that Brabus had just teased the model on Instagram with a series of shadowy shots, even though thousands of people had already seen the car in full.
The Reddit user deleted the photos they posted to r/whatisthiscar after commenters pointed out it was supposed to be a secret. One person responded, “Looks like the Brabus 77/BODO, which hasn’t been revealed yet.” Another shared a screenshot of the original poster saying, “I will take some more pictures tomorrow maybe we can identify it then better.” Needless to say, they deleted that, too.
A source was able to snag the photos before they were wiped from the Reddit thread, so now, we have them here:
It’s unquestionably the car that Brabus teased on Instagram. You can see the “77” just beneath the rear glass, and the Mercedes SL headlights match those in a post from last week as well. Plausible deniability is out the window, I’m afraid.
The car’s specs are still anyone’s guess, but since it appears to be based on the Mercedes-AMG SL63, there’s likely a biturbo V8 under the hood. Stock examples of the gas-only version make 577 horsepower and 593 lb-ft of torque, while the plug-in hybrid S E Performance model goes way further with 805 hp and 1,047 pound-feet of torque. I don’t see a charge door on the rear bumper, however, which leads me to believe Brabus’ special edition relies only on fossil fuel and boost.
Brabus already offers the Rocket GT based on the AMG SL, and it puts out 1,000 hp. There’s no guarantee this will be more powerful, but it gives a good idea of what’s possible with this platform. Either way, it might not be long until the specialty manufacturer decides to pull the sheets off the car entirely.
Hey, at least they tried.
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