The CLS 500’s styling is so pretty it could well be a new Maserati Quattroporte, so I’m thankful the good people at AMG recognised a good thing when they saw it and left the CLS pretty much unmolested. In fact, just about everything about the way this car changes velocity is an assault on the senses. Stopping, thanks to those massive cross-drilled discs and huge eight-piston callipers, is no less impressive, hauling the 1847kg CLS to a halt with eye-popping force. The baritone song of a high-tech V8 is sweet enough but when you throw a supercharger falsetto into the melody, the resulting chorus can lift the hairs on the back of your neck.Īnd for such a big, heavy car the pace at which in collects speed is nothing short of staggering, reaching 100 km/h in 4.7 seconds and 200 km/h in just 16.1.Top speed is supposedly pegged at 250 kph but AMG still saw fit to install a speedometer that reads all the way to an entirely feasible 320 km/h. To put that into perspective, a Porsche 911 produces 325 bhp and the legendary Dodge Viper’s got 500. Not surprising, perhaps, when you consider the supercharged, intercooler 5.4-litre V8 packs an astonishing 476 bhp and 700 NM (516 lb-ft) of torque. So while hypothesising as to what the CLS 55 AMG would be like in advance of being handed the keys, I imaged a car that combined the brutal, emotionless speed that AMG does so well with an overdone styling kit that ruins the looks and a rock hard suspension that destroys its composure, making it about the most pointless thing since the common, but pretty functionless, necktie. I adored the CLS, not because of its performance or handling which are fairly pedestrian, to be frank, but simply because of the way it looks and the mature, composed way it devours huge kilometres and soothes vast distances away.Ī few weeks prior to that I’d had a thrash in Mercedes’ new SLK 55 AMG and while I loved the AMG performance I found the ride a tad firm, the handling a little too clinical and the styling a smidge tasteless. A few weeks ago I had a pootle around in the new CLS 500 and I came away smitten.
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