Mercedes Benz S-Klasse (S65 AMG). Name says it all? Well here’s a sneak peak:
It is five meters long, weighs two and a quarter tons and is painted
storm-cloud grey. It has 19-inch split-rims, a quartet of exhaust pipes, and almost completely tinted-out windows. The legend ‘V12 Biturbo’ is emblazoned down the sides. Could this be Mercedes Benz’s best car ever produced, or even better, the hardest car, fully loaded with technological advancements ever created?Potentially. Being a ‘Merc Fan’, who drove a ’93 Mercedes S-Class back in Saudi Arabia and had the opportunity to test drive several other Mercs at showroom locations there, I believe that the S65 AMG is certainly one of the most powerful Mercs produced in recent times. One of Mercedes Benz’s greatest attributes is their advancement in luxury and electronic gadgets. Seldom, however, does the German luxury car manufacturer produce sedans and road sports cars with greatly modified engines – engines much more technologically
advanced than their predecessors.
The Mercedes S65 AMG breaks all rules! Six-litre, 12-cylinder carbon-fibre-clad engine fits perfectly under its vast bonnet. Any space left to spare is occupied by the two turbo-chargers, each the size of a beer keg! This is an interesting move by Mercedes Benz because conventionally Mercedes would simply increase the number of valves in their cars: V6-V8-V12. After the V12, however, critics questioned if ‘valve-frontiers’ could be broken and whether the
‘impossible be turned into possible!’ The S65 served justice. In
fact, it did more than that. As aforementioned, the S65 possesses two turbo chargers that makes it twice as powerful as a Mercedes S-Class. This combination helps to generate a frankly ridiculous 604bhp, which is 151bhp more than a Rolls-Royce Phantom and 64bhp more than a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti.
If you were given the chance to test drive this car, what would you do? How many horses of the 604 could you control? Wicked!
For such a large luxury saloon, the S65’s performance figures are, of course, completely outlandish. 0-62mph passes in just 4.4 seconds. The top speed, as in all quick Mercedes, is artificially limited to 155mph (or 250kmh). Ditch the limiter and it could potentially surge all the way on to 190mph. Luxury Nascar?
Samy’s Verdict:
A further technological advancement is the self-preservation device available, the Distronic system, a $2,640 option. This uses radar to automatically hold you a safe distance from the car in front of you, should you temporarily nod off while the cruise control is switched on. In the S65, it also helps prevent you slamming straight into the back of a car you’re trying to overtake… This could be useful for a lot of ‘us college students’, especially on Saturday nights,
but the thought of paying $2,640 for just the device doesn’t quite match our budget, does it?
Consider it this way: the S65 is quicker, slicker, and a lot more menacing than Mercedes’s still superlatively ostentatious saloons, the S-Class and Maybach.
Prices for the S65 kick off from $235,000 and most people would
struggle to arrange a mortgage at the same value! For the time
being, we could stick to being impressed by Mercedes Benz breaking
technological frontiers!