The Line Must Be Drawn Here.

Any motorhead worth their salt knows AMG. They are the bastion of mega horsepower saloons and the basso profundo baritone you hear over the background of shrieking F1 cars in Sepang. You would expect their tagline to be ‘absolute power’, but it isn’t. Because, according to one of their senior advisors, the horsepower race is coming to an end.

By Adlin Yusman

Well, as most of you already know, the horsepower race has been going on for far too long. But strangely, from the expression given to me by the chaps at AMG, it’s about to come to an end. Over the past few years, we have seen ever more powerful, nuclear powered super saloons being introduced into the market. The market, it seems, have been lapping it up, needing no excuse to opt for even more power in their every day transport. In Germany, the bastion of AMG, M and RS acronyms have been providing motor heads with the option of having supercar performance with almost none of the drawbacks. AMG alone sells over 20,000 cars worldwide. So why are they saying that they’re done playing the horsepower game?

Well, if you really scrutinize the numbers, you would notice that a 600bhp SL 63 AMG is only a couple of horses shy from the range topping Mercedes-McLaren SLR. If they decide to take a short pause and reflect on their relentless pursuit towards horsepower supremacy, they would’ve also realized that most of their customers will never, ever use all 600 horses. Ever.

In fact, so rampant are these horses that most of them have to be reined in electronically; to stop them from shredding the tires in one quick burst to the shops. I have personally driven an E55 AMG in the wet and believe me when I tell you that when you unleash all 480 horses on the wet tarmac, you’d better have another pair of trousers in the boot. To really put an AMG car in its element you would need a cloudless sky and an empty airplane runway. Oh, and a limitless supply of petrol.

Most AMG owners I know are either unbridled by the drinking habits of their cars or are owners of multinational petrochemical companies. To advise them that their planet turning machine is addicted to black stuff is akin to telling them you’d like to be on their board of directors. Despite the fact that it costs more than RM250 to fill the tank up to the brim – and that they’d struggle to see a 300km range if they’re a heavy driver – most AMG owners don’t care. And, if you’re reading this and you’re clenching your bum to the tune of RM2.70 per litre to fill up your car, you’re not a prospective AMG owner.

To own an AMG is to own the very best of Mercedes-Benz.

Not only is it expensive (in a good way), it’s also almost entirely bespoke. Every engine is hand built to perfection by a single individual. AMG’s motto is simple: One Man, One Engine. And it’s not hyperbolic in any way. In Affalterbach (a region of Germany where AMG is based) each engineer is assigned to an individual engine (with almost no involvement from any other engineer unless he/she falls ill and is unable to finish his task) and until that engine is fully constructed, he is not allowed to place the legendary AMG plaque that bears his name on the powerplant.

For a company to continue its tradition of allowing an engineer to place his name on a very integral component of their vehicle speaks volumes at how diligently AMG intends to keep its individuality within the Mercedes-Benz conglomeration. And this ‘culture’ is felt throughout the entire facility, from the spotless cafeteria to the state-of-the-art service bay. Being AMG they can’t afford to settle for second best in anything they venture into.

Even the customization program offered by Mercedes-Benz is deemed to be insufficient to a discerning AMG client. And here’s the thing. They actually took apart a brand new CL500 – which I assume was already fitted with some sort of Designo leather – just so the owner could have the seat fitted with the same sort of leather that his favorite arm chair came in. You raise your eyebrows momentarily and then you find out that his individualization program cost more than the car.

It’s only when you add up all these eccentricities do you really start to fathom what it takes to become an AMG owner.

Naturally, being an AMG owner, you would be kept abreast to any information regarding future or fresh out of the factory AMG variants. And that was how I ended up here, thousands of miles away from home; to take the new SL63 AMG and a few other cars out for a spin around small country roads outlining the factory.

The first car I stepped into was naturally, the SL 63. Having seen the car from numerous press photos posted around the internet, I was quite keen to see if the car looked as good in the metal as it did on the web. Why? Because, for the most part, the car was left pretty much unchanged. The rear lights still look the same, and the same goes for the doors, the roof and the front windscreen. Frankly, the only thing that changed dramatically was the frontal aspect of the SL, which partnered to the mean looking AMG bumper gives the new SL a mean, supercar outlook.

Is it a positive improvement? Definitely. With the new ’08 lights the SL looks remarkably cohesive and the sheer arrogance of the front snout gives a visual appeal not unlike a DTM touring car. The SL is now a lean, mean, power machine that has a level of gravitas usually reserved for multi-million ringgit supercars. Now, before you start writing in and telling me that the SL 63 is a multi-million ringgit supercar, you must understand that the SL on its own is not a supercar. Granted, it’s a really, really quick GT, but it’s not a supercar. It’s far too comfortable, too pliant and has too many buttons for it to be anything other than a very, very expensive Mercedes. And that’s not a bad thing. If I was an ultra successful owner of an international football team, the SL 63 is super enough for me. Like most AMGs, the long-legged nature of the SL is suitable for lazy long distance drives. The insurmountable amount of torque allows you to wallow in almost any gear and the only thing stopping you from blowing away other road goers into next week is a tiny jerk of the loud pedal.

But is it a huge leap forward from the SL55? Not really. In the SL 55, the supercharged V8 gives you even more low down torque and allows you a greater degree of laze-induced driving. In the SL 63, you’ve got to work for your money. But that’s the clear difference in attitude that differentiates the two AMGs; in the SL 55 you don’t need to rev the tail pipes off its mountings. In the SL 63, you would want to. In the SL 55, you’d leave the car in auto and pummel the loud pedal over and over again. In the SL 63, you’d shift it into manual and drop the gears just a few extra times just to hear the amazing basso profundo soundtrack of the AMG 6.2. But the SL 63 has one amazing party piece: the launch control.

According to our chaperone, the SL 63 is capable of doing numerous traffic light drags without blowing the gearbox into a million pieces. When asked how this is possible (as other manufacturers advise you to only do them sparingly) they just shrugged and said there’s no reason why it couldn’t. Whether this is pure PR speak or proper 21^st century electro-wizardry I can’t say, as we were not given enough room to give the new launch control a try.

Unfortunately, for now this system is only available on the SL. Asked on whether this system will ever be implemented in other AMGs coming out of Affalterbach, they just winked and informed us that we should be hearing the news sometime soon.

Jumping straight into the S 63 from the focused SL came as a bit of a shock to me. The first thing that struck me was how much quieter the S was in comparison to the shrieking SL. As a result, I kept driving harder just to hear the soundtrack, which in the S 63 was just a little too muted for my tastes. But, judging from most S 63 buyers, they’d much rather enjoy seeing the scenery whiz them by as they’re doing license losing speed. To keep them entertained, the S63 is loaded with every toy imaginable, from the multi-speaker Harmon-Kardon to multiple TV screens for the passengers in the rear. Amazingly, the AMG package has turned the S-Class from a cumbersome, slow-witted limo into a properly sorted autobahn stormer. But don’t expect M5 or Quattroporte levels of handling, as the S63 is still tuned firmly towards comfort.

Unlike the SL, the S63 prefers to be left in auto. Like most AMGs, the S63 is still capable of piling on the speed like a lab rat on amphetamines. Driving through the hills around Affalterbach, the S63 was a sterling performer, with impressive brakes (which clearly saved our lives when a huge tractor pulled out of nowhere onto the road) and a commanding presence. A few of our local journos commented that the 6.2 litre engine fit the S-Class perfectly, providing the car with ample performance, drivability whilsts allowing the huge engine to really stretch its legs on long, arrow straight roads.

But as good as the S and SL were, I saved the best for last. When the C63 was finally handed to me, I literally rubbed my hands with glee. Here was a car that isn’t much longer than Proton Persona but came with over 6 times the power. Surely the world has gone mad right?

Starting the car up, I took a moment to savor the raw aural attributes of the 6.2 litre engine in the C63. Despite sharing the same engine, all AMG cars vary in the way they project their soundtrack. In the SL, it was like playing in live concert, with Led Zeppelin. In the S, the sound became a little less guttural, like an opera singer singing in your living room. In the C63 however, it was raw, unhinged and unashamedly brutal. Imagine a World War II fighter plane, flying over your house and into your bathroom and you’d be close. Every prod of the accelerator paddle, shifted the earth off its axis. Here was an engine that was far too powerful (451bhp), far too bespoke (it’s still designed by one man) to be in a car that looks like your neighbor’s C200. Even the interior doesn’t shout AMG. Well, I suppose you could find some AMG bits if you tried hard enough – like the meter readouts – but other than that, it’s an entirely reserved affair in here. At least there’s nothing to distract you from the real task at hand; driving the baby AMG as hard as you can.

Seeing as this was the first AMG to allow you to fully disengage the computer nannies, it was great that the revised 7-speed gearbox also follows your command to a tee. Gone are the days of computer assisted upshifts and jerky downshifts, in the C63 (and in manual mode) you determine when the gears are engaged. My only gripe was that the upshift was a little sluggish as opposed to glorious and highly accurate downshift blips, but the sluggishness is probably only measured in milliseconds so it’s not that big of a deal. I was assured that most C63s are bang on cue when it comes to gearshifts, so my test unit would probably have been an isolated incident.

Of all the cars I had on test, the C63 suited its environment the best. Its smallish body was a joy to drive along the tight roads and gave me the confidence to push the C harder than any of the other AMGs. The razor sharp steering coupled to the perfectly judged throttle mapping gave the C63 a character I have never seen on Mercedes-Benz before. It’s a Mercedes-Benz unplugged and I love it. If this is a sign of things to come from AMG, I applaud them.

To be honest, the AMG experience made me feel hollow inside. Naturally, the cars were the stars of the show and AMG has come a long way to be what it is today. But Malaysia is a long way (if ever) from being receptive towards big capacity cars. With the never ending increase in crude prices, my fear is that other countries will soon share a dim view on petrol guzzling cars. And that’s a shame. Because we are at the zenith of automotive technology and it would be a disappointment if cars like these were no longer allowed to exist. The horsepower war may be over, but the real war, the one with the global market and the scarcity of raw materials, is only just beginning.