Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
I love this one. This is a 2001 Mercedes-Benz S500 that has been modified by Brabus with their B11 package and is also armored to a B4 level. I suppose the extra power is needed given the weight. It is finished in the wonderful color of Mystic Blue Designo Metallic and the interior? Oh, wait until you see what they did. I was not prepared for this.
Hey, talk about German cars that we never feature? The Smart is up there! From its phone-booth-on-wheels styling to the 1.0-liter 3-pot developed by Mitsubishi and linked to a 5-speed semi-automated gearbox (both introduced for the second generation); well, it’s an unusual car. Making things even more odd, German tuner Brabus threw their hat into the ring and turned up the power for the second generation – slightly – to just over 100 on the turbocharged variant. However, we didn’t get that here. So what did we get from the Brabus version? They also gave it some pretty cool double-staggered wheels, a sport suspension, a sport exhaust system, retuned shifting for the Getrag semi-automatic, and lightly revised styling. They were only available in silver or black, and they were not cheap. Out the door, the drop-top version would set you back over $21,000 plus fees. So what does one of these crazy A451s set you back today?
It’s always fun to look at those crazy fast SUV from Mercedes-AMGs past and given they’ve been pumping them out for over 20 years now, there are quite a few. However, when you happen to see one for sale that is tuned by the madmen over at Brabus, you take an extra close look. That is what I thought was going on with this 2012 ML63 AMG with the B63S Widestar kit. Someone spent a pile of money to tack on the extra bodywork and paint it, no matter how you feel about its looks. However, I was quite surprised when I looked under the hood.
Mercedes-Benz turner Brabus is never one to pull any punches. When they go “all in” on a build, they don’t hold back and usually produce something that has so much power that it is almost useless in any kind of normal driving situation. Impressive outputs aren’t the end of the spec sheet, as they’ll usually throw some bumpers, wheels, and most importantly, brakes on the car as well. Most of the time you get a fairly conservative design in terms of tuner companies, but sometimes you get some stuff that really went off the deep end.
Today, as luck would have it, a 2004 S600 popped up for sale in Philadelphia with the Brabus T12 package on it. The W220 S600 was already a pretty powerful car with the M275 twin-turbo V12, but if you give Brabus a check for nearly $60,000, they’ll make it even better. How much better?
Welcome back to Wednesday Wheel Roundup. Today, I wanted to check out a few sets of wheels that differ quite a lot in size and taste. First up are a set of 19” Mercedes-Benz Monoblock wheels. They are a 19×8.5 and 19x.9.5 that let you run some really wide tires if that is the look you are going for. These are seen as the ultimate wheels for the W140 or the R129. Next are another set of 19″ wheels but this time from Brabus, followed by a hard-to-find set of BMW Style 38s. These 3-spokes are now back in style thanks to the resurgence of everything 80s and 90s now. Speaking of, Carter tracked down a few sets of DP Motorsports wheels following up on yesterday’s DP935. Carter also threw in one of his favorite 911 wheel designs – the Speedlines from the 993 Targa. The last two sets are great options for the cars who want to upgrade from their stock 14″ wheels into a 15” set, but keep the OEM look. A very clean set of ATS wheels that look identical to the factory 14” Bundts open up an entirely new world of tire choices and if you want to keep your hubcaps, a set of 15″ steelies with the ultra-rare 15″ hubcaps that were on the W100 600 and some ambulances in Europe.
