My pal John hadda drop a client car off and his ride home fell through so I covered it. He wanted to go to a place for lunch he ain't been to in awhile that just happened to be near Park Place motors, so we just had to swing by there so he could sweetalk the dealer into letting him testdrive an '06 s65 AMG. for them, like me what don't care much bout luxobarges, thishere's a Naziwagen 4door limo of simply enormous dimensions and you look at the 245 lopro tires in front and the 275's in back and wonder what in hell it needs those for, till you find that this car has a twin turbo 6liter v12. OK fine, 600 ponies, but it's that tq figure that really grabs you. So there we are testdriving, I'm lounging in the back seat like some CEO potentate. The car is utterly silent, you can barely tell it's running, perfectly smooth, very very comfortable, and none of this is really surprising, till the dealer gets out and lets John drive. We hit an onramp and he gets the diamond lane and it's 30 to 120 in less time than it takes to read this. But still utterly silent, no drama, no noise, no discernable downshift, no nuthin. Just enough electronic nannies stepping in to keep the rear end from coming out too much. I mean, I knew it was gonna be fast and all, but the way it puts the power down is simply astonishing. You expect to just turn the tires to smoke but no. It ALL goes to the ground. Later, we're on the freeway getting ready to grab an offramp and the dealer says "this ramp's fun, too bad there's that subaru in the way" and John sez "I don't wanna follow that subaru" and pulls into right lane and floors it. And this is what 740 ftlb means. It means that it smashes you back in that cushy seat just as savagely from 60 or 80 as it does from off the line. The guy in the STI, if he'd even had the inclination, did not have time to downshift, or even reach the gearlever, before we were around him and over the horizon. Just effing incredible. That car has no business doing what it does, even more so than my car has no business doing what it does. At 40 grand, it seems like a goldern BARGAIN.
But I wanna hold out for an sl65... they have an 05 there for like 60 grand. Gonna have to wait for that one to depreciate a touch more, and maybe sell some teeth or a kidney.
They tell me the AMG version of that biturbo V12 gets boosted to about the same level as the mill in my car. Hmm. 1.8l@22-24psi, or 6l@22psi. Gollygee. if I come across one of these whilst pedaling around in my car, I shan't bother messing with it...
But I wanna hold out for an sl65... they have an 05 there for like 60 grand. Gonna have to wait for that one to depreciate a touch more, and maybe sell some teeth or a kidney.
They tell me the AMG version of that biturbo V12 gets boosted to about the same level as the mill in my car. Hmm. 1.8l@22-24psi, or 6l@22psi. Gollygee. if I come across one of these whilst pedaling around in my car, I shan't bother messing with it...
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