Nothing left to prove
It could leave the rest standing without breaking a sweat. Just knowing that is enough. By Thomas Falkiner
SOME people are obsessed with potentiality. Like my godfather, who once went out and purchased a top-ofthe-range JBL cinema sound system that pumps out God knows how many thousands of ear-shredding watts. It has a million channels, numerous equalizer modes and a subwoofer that probably weighs as much as me. Even though it has the power to blow the roof off, I don’t think he’s had the volume knob anywhere near the halfway mark. He’s just happy in the understanding that if the need ever arises, if the foundations do indeed require a thorough shaking, this ridiculously over-endowed system will oblige.
It’s a similar story with a friend of mine who’s fond of a good firearm. He had a 9mm pistol — a gun that, as he once so cheerfully demonstrated, could vaporise a piece of fruit with a pull of the trigger. But this wasn’t enough. Just in case he ever ran into an angry bull elephant or woke to the zombie apocalypse, he spent a fortune and upgraded to an insanely potent .44 Magnum. Does he really need all that extra fire power? No, probably not. I also didn’t need to buy a R4 000 set of Zwilling kitchen knives seeing that the most complex meal I’m capable of making is a peanut-butter sandwich. But I did. Why? Because I know they’re there, you see, all shiny and sharp and German. And I like that. I like the fact that at any given time I can whip them out and go full Chef Benny.
Potential. It’s weird reasoning. Black math. A somewhat peculiar way of rationalising one’s purchasing decision. And in vehicular terms it’s probably best represented by the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG S.
The way I see it, you would purchase this particular machine for a stately kind of comfort you won’t necessarily find in an Audi or BMW equivalent. Mercedes are kings of the cushy ride. They made their name engineering cars like the W108 and W123 that floated over road irregularities like Aladdin’s carpet. Here it’s no different. Dial that adaptive rear air suspension into comfort mode and the E63 sails along like a hovercraft on virginal Bahamian beach sand. Even on those enormous 19-inch alloy wheels. It’s a wonderfully relaxant experience. As is surrendering your body to that deluxe interior.
You’d expect the innards of something with an AMG badge on its boot lid to be a tad compromised. You would expect it to swap Benz luxury for track-focused utilitarianism. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite that flatbottomed steering wheel, those drilled aluminium pedals, the E63 feels as calm and as laid-back as any of its less muscular brethren.
As such, I spent much time pootling along slowly in a blissful state of calm. I enjoyed the comfortable seats, the vacuum-like levels of isolation and the Harman Kardon sound system that played
Let It Be the way Phil Spector intended. Strapped into this Mercedes-Benz, nothing got to me. Not the wayward taxi or the broken robots or the Golf GTI riding up my rear bumper.
For one hard press of the accelerator pedal would leave all these everyday annoyances far, far away. Just like everybody else out there, the AMG tuning brigade have finally turned their white lab-coated backs on those naturally aspirated engines of old. This means that the 5.5-litre V8 loitering under this car’s hood is force-fed with not one but two turbochargers.
The results are tongue-swallowingly brutal. At full bellow (there’s none of that artificial, piped-through-the-speakers nonsense here, thank you very much) the E63 is devastatingly quick. Things happen so rapidly, far-off scenery approaches at such a vastly accelerated rate, that it actually feels as if somebody is fast-forwarding your life with their TV remote. It’s a sense of speed that I’ve previously only felt inside tarmac deities like the 911 Turbo and McLaren 12C.
Yet, unlike with these two supercars, you don’t feel that clawing need to exploit all of this planet-slowing performance all of the time. At least I didn’t. Perhaps it has something to do with its restrained middle-management roots? Maybe it’s that sporty yet unobtrusive styling or subtly first-class cabin?
Whatever it is, the E63 AMG S is a rare breed of über-saloon of which you never feel obliged to give stick. You realise it can wrestle with the best of them, that it can out-drag (cue the “race start” launch control system) and out-drift (cue the limited-slip differential) most hot metal rolling on the road today. It has this glut of latent potential, a special covert aptitude for annihilating practically any car, road or distance fool enough to stand in its path. And for some, this knowledge is all they’ll ever need to hand over the cheque.
You don’t feel that clawing need to exploit all the planet-slowing performance