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Tag: AMG

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Coupe Week: 2008 Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG Black Series

465 lb-ft of torque, that’s a whole lot of twist. It’s stump pulling, Cummins diesel, father in-law impressing amounts of torque. The CLK63 AMG Black Series is more or less a street legal DTM car and it still baffles me that anyone with a valid drivers license and enough money can operate one of these vehicles. I know a couple people who have driven these cars and all of them get this particular look in their eyes when they talk about it, part fear, part respect, part lust. For a vehicle based on the rather bland C209 platform, the Black Series is a striking car that demands attention via its flared fenders and bonkers soundtrack.

Oddly enough the Black Series flies under the radar in the enthusiast community, it rarely comes up in conversation when discussing the most insane cars of the past decade. Perhaps it’s because Mercedes only built it for two years or because it came out around the time of the Audi S5. Though the S5 was much slower, I think it was a whole hell of a-lot better looking and the 8T3 platform interior was far ahead of that of the comparable Mercedes. The ergonomics of all the C209 coupes leave much to be desired, AMG goodies or not. I’ve been baby sitting a CLK 350 for the past couple weeks and the cabin completely disappoints me every time I get in it. The buttons feel cheap, many of them are exactly where I wouldn’t want them to be and the whole package seems to be phoned in overall.  However, I’d be willing to put up with that lackluster interior in exchange for access to 507hp and I’m willing to bet you might be too.

Click for details: 2008 Mercedes Benz CLK63 Black Series On Cars.com

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1998 Mercedes-Benz SLK 230 Kompressor

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At age 10 I was really into collecting die-cast models from Maisto and I vividly remember picking up a 1/18 scale version of the car you see above. As a 10 year old a model of a bright yellow roadster with a functional folding top seems pretty damn cool but only a few short years later after seeing a real one I found myself thinking “that car is so lame.” Of course it was completely due to the circumstances in which I saw the car (tacky retirees at the wheel) and the fact that my automotive tastes had begun to shift towards overwrought Japanese vehicles. If only I had realized in my youth what I have realized now, the R170 SLK is a pretty nifty little car and holds an important place in Mercedes Benz history.

With it’s folding steel convertible top the first gen SLK was quite the head turner in it’s debut year. Mercedes sold 55,000 of the retro-futuristic roadsters worldwide and it snagged the title of North American Car of the Year from Car & Driver in 1998. Weighing a respectable 3,036 lbs. and featuring a 185hp supercharged inline-4 engine, the SLK 230 Kompressor moved from naught to 60 in 7.2 seconds which for the olden days of the late ’90s was pretty good. It marked Mercedes’ return to making a light little roadster with a four cylinder engine, something they hadn’t done since the glory days of the 190SL. I think it’s safe to say that had the SLK not been successful, Mercedes may not have figured out that it’s ok to put smaller motors in their cars when it suits the chassis.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1998 Mercedes-Benz SLK230 on eBay

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Tuner Tuesday Groceries Gotten: 2014 Mercedes-Benz E63S AMG 4Matic Estate Brabus 850

We’re pretty much all big fans of fast wagons at German Cars For Sale Blog, but over the past few years the number of offerings has steadily dried up. We’ve never received the hot versions of the M5 Touring or RS6 Avant, for example, and steadily even the quick versions of the Audi and Volkswagen wagons have left these shores too. That leaves fast wagon fans to look towards only two places in the last few years; Cadillac, oddly, with the CTS-V wagon and the last German holdout, Mercedes-Benz. It’s somewhat odd that Mercedes-Benz has upped the nuttiness in its large E-class wagon too, since it never really took part in the original Wagon Wars between its countrymen. True, there were some limited number AMG conversions done in the late 80s/early 90s, but for the most part Mercedes-Benz had stayed away until recently. Then, a few years ago, it started offering AMG-enhanced versions of the E-Class Estate; first in 55, then later 63 form. If you can get by the strange numbering system that doesn’t correspond to the actual engine under the hood, that leaves you with one of the fastest wagons made out of the box. Walk down to your local Mercedes-Benz dealer and you can order up one of these W212 Estates with a staggering 577 horsepower in “S” form. That was a true supercar number not very long ago, but it comes wrapped in the guise of a sensible wagon with all-wheel drive and a slick 7-speed automatic transmission. Of course, it’s heavy…so it only does 0-60 runs in 3.6 seconds. That means you won’t be able to keep up with your neighbor’s new BMW M6 Gran Coupe, which does the run in 3.1 seconds. Time to hit the Brabus gym, then…

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2014 Brabus 850 on Brabus.com

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Tuner Tuesday: 1993 Mercedes-Benz 500SL RENNtech 6.0 “SLammer”

Since their launch, the R129 Mercedes-Benz SLs have held my attention. Perhaps it’s because I was heading towards driving age when I first got to sit in a then-new 500SL, but regardless of the motivation I really wanted one. My father used to take me to the local Mercedes-Benz dealership in his W113, so even though I was a child who grew up in the 1980s I was never particularly partial to the R107 – and I’m still not. Early Euro-spec cars look nice to me, but for the most part they look a bit too soft and large. So the R129 was a revelation – it looked substantially more sporty and was thanks to a new 5.0 V8 good for 320 horsepower mated to a 5-speed automatic transmission. But for some well-heeled enthusiasts, the $100,000 price tag (in 1993!) wasn’t enough. AMG was in a state of flux in the early 1990s, but there was a new kid in town that was grabbing some serious headlines – RENNtech:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1993 Mercedes-Benz 500SL 6.0 on eBay

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2000 Mercedes-Benz C43 AMG Estate

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I was always remorseful that Mercedes-Benz decided not to send it’s W202 C-class estate to the US market. This was a very handsome five-door that was a star amongst taxi drivers the world over. I still see a good number of these trolling the streets in various cities abroad, such was durability of this car. Even during a trip to Lisbon last year, there was a line of W202 diesel estates waiting outside of Portela International Airport. And yes, if speed was your thing, Mercedes-Benz offered an AMG version of this estate, just to make you long roof fans a bit more jealous of other automotive markets. This final year C43 AMG Estate for sale in Switzerland was brought to our attention from our reader Richard in Zurich. With just over 20,000 miles on the clock, this is a dream come true for those into the Youngtimer scene.

Click for details: 2000 Mercedes-Benz C43 AMG Estate on AutoScout24

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