Reviewer: Christian A. Wimmer
Weather Conditions: Warm (Summer)
Photoshoot Location: Mößling, Germany

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2004 Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG (W211)

I went up to the local Mercedes-Benz dealership looking for some fun. There was a black W211 E55 AMG on the lot and I was just staring at it in awe. Black is such a wonderful color on this car.



Anyway, after awhile, I go inside and see Mr. Schultz, who promptly walks over and we do a little talking. I ask him who owns that E55 AMG out there? He replies "We do. Would you like to drive it?" DRIVE IT!? I'd freaking kill to drive this car!!! So he goes and fishes the keys out. He tells me that this car is usually in Landshut because of a bigger showroom and more customers. That means I was very lucky that I went up there today. I have around 30 minutes to try this car out before the car gets taken back to Landshut.



Ok, so I open her up and get into her. Everything is the same as in our E320 except for the AMG speedometers, AMG sport leather seats and the differently tuned 5-speed automatic transmission. I start up the engine. Vrrrrmmm....a really aggressive and deep cultured V8 sound is what I hear. It frightens me, but at the same time is pushes me to find out what this car can do. The whole time I am excitedly saying to myself (in English) "Holy sh*t, holy sh*t, holy sh*t!". The engine sound could only be described as sweet, from a carnut point of view. And the engine was also revhappy despite te forced induction.



But the best part is perhaps yet to come! I engage the gear into "D" and drive out of the dealer lot knowing precisely which back roads to take to test her out. Of course, I had heard what this baby could do so I had to be careful. Wouldn't want to crash this thing now, would I?

At first, I take it easy. I am getting acquainted with the car and the car is getting acquainted with me (the adaptive 5-speed A/T that is!). The moment I pass out of dealership sight, I risk a kickdown. Already, the gas pedal and engine response have proven very responsive - despite the forced induction motor.

Now comes to good part. I am out of sight from the dealer, the roads are empty (it was lunch time) and the road ahead is long and straight. 5.4-l supercharged V8, 476-hp, 700-Nm of torque, responsive and excellent 5-speed auto, long and straight road ahead: DO THE MATH!

I was doing around 20 km/h on purpose to have a quick acceleration, flying start style. I proceed to do a kickdown- VRRRROOOOM, an instantaneous response from the V8 and the car's front lifts up a bit, the backwheels are spinning (you could actually feel it inside the car!), the ESP lights blink while correcting the tires, and the driver, me, is brutally pushed deeply back into the seat as the E55 AMG surges forward with such incredible, such monster acceleration! This thing was doing 160 km/h (100 mph) in NO TIME! The speedometer needle flew across numbers like they were nothing. A pretty frightful experience. The SLK32 AMG I had driven a few months earlier felt pale in comparison to this machine. I think INSANE is a pretty good word to use for describing the power this car can develop. Everytime I did a kickdown at low speeds, the ESP and other electronic gadgets would take over and correct the wheelspin and trajectory of the car. Thank God. This might be annoying on a racetrack, but here on the backroads of Mühldorf, this was useful.



As I was having fun with kickdowns, I experimented with the transmission by shifting manually with the little steering wheel shift buttons, all the time exploiting the power of this car. It's fast alright, no doubt there. A lot of the roads here are also twisty, and the E55 AMG handled them quite well. It has to be said though that the steering was a touch vague. The feedback was generally decent and the response was good overall, but I still wished for a more direct steering layout.



The brakes? Well, the brakes were terrific! You could be doing extremely high speeds and come to a complete stop in no time! The brakes were really fabulous and efficient. On numerous occassions, I had the E55 AMG up near 140-160 km/h (on 80-100 km/h limited roads!) and the brakes responded well and brought the car to a safe stop within acceptable times. No complaints here.

Overall, a superb vehicle. What I really liked about the car was the engine sound. Damn, that stuff was addicting. Everytime you floored it, the engine responded with such beautiful aggressive Kompressor V8 sounds. Simply beautiful. Oh, and when I was done, the board computer showed an estimate of the fuel consumption that would have occured had I kept driving the way I did: 28.7 liter pro 100 km or 8.1 mpg! No thanks, with these fuel prices right now!



On a side note, I'd like to add that this vehicle had so much torque, I don't think I could have handled it with a manual transmission. The immense power of this car really is best channeled to the rear wheels through an automatic transmission. The 5-speed A/T really acted well and did superb shifting. It also reactd quickly when I pressed the steering wheel shifts. I doubt that many people could actually drive this car of it had a manual, you'd have to be a professional. And how many of us are professionals?

END OF REVIEW