Superstar

There was a time when having the letters AMG stuck on your trunk was enough to shut half the guys up down at the pub and leave them drooling with envy.  But nowadays, it seems that even that is not enough. You need to look for another two words: Black Series. There. That should shut the other half up.

And as far as the Black Series hierarchy goes, it doesn’t get any better than the AMG CLK 63; it’s like the elite unit of an already elite division that exists solely to kick ass and stick four tailpipes up at the competition. It is very special. Think of it like dating the best looking member of the Corrs. It is lighter, more powerful and even more brutal than any comparable AMG before it and makes no apologies for bastardizing Mercedes Benz’s reputation for comfort and luxury. Comparing it to the pedestrian version of the AMG CLK63 would be like comparing Manny Pacquiao during the off season and on the night of the fight.

Loosely translated, it means that some humorless guy in Affalterbach, Germany, spent countless hours building this engine with his bare hands and would personally hunt you down and give you a swift kick in the jewels if he found out you were using all of his hard work just to pick up a date on Saturday night or for posing down at the country club. This car was designed to be driven. Hard. It was born on the Nurburgring and raised on Formula One circuits around the world, and gets incredibly homesick when handled by rich, bald, fat men who will never know what 7,000RPM sounds like in 7th gear.

Yep. It’s serious business, this Black Series. So serious that only 700 units will ever be produced – half of which will be sent to the States, which is thankfully far enough from Affalterbach to ensure the safety of all those rich, bald, fat men. It uses the same 6.2 liter AMG engine of the CLK 63 but has been massaged up to produce more than 500hp and an earth-moving 478 pounds of torque. But that is still only half the story.

Each and every AMG CLK63 Black Series is stripped of all the pansy stuff like rear seats and leather trim and replaced with plenty of weight saving carbon fiber and other go-fast goodies. Once they are sure that every creature comfort has been swapped with the low calorie version, they fit these humongous family-pizza-sized, 14.2-inch, vented composite brake rotors, as well as 19-inch rims with special Pirelli rubber, and then modify a 7-speed gearbox to cope with all the vulgar amounts of torque they have now created.

Then, after fitting in a completely (manual) adjustable racing suspension, (not the wimpy electronic type) they finish it off by giving it a full tank of testosterone so as to flare those carbon fiber wheel arches and give the car such a menacing stance that it will have you wondering whether it wants to tear the car in front apart or simply mate with it. Either way, it does not get any more Alpha male than this.

And unless you are one of the lucky punters that had to sleep with someone to get your order in, this is about as close as your going to get to one, especially considering that the order books were closed last December. Thankfully for us, one generous, if not slightly nervous owner donated his pristine AMG CLK 63 Black Series to us for a breath-taking road test. “Please go easy on it.  I waited ages for it. It’s very new.” The brave owner said as he handed me the key. “Trust me,” I said. “I was a used car salesman before a motoring hack.”

As soon as he was out of sight and safely distracted, I found a quiet patch of road and decided to have a bit of fun. With the 12-million peso price tag flashing in my head in-sync with the traction control warning light on the dash, I kept the throttle pinned to the firewall and bathed in the glorious sounds of over 500 wild horses trying to break free. The rear tires squirmed across the hot asphalt, grappling for grip, filling those massive flared arches with thick, creamy white smoke and painting two black lines of premium rubber on the road behind me.

Once the tires bit, though, the Merc leapt forward and literally pinned me back into the carbon fiber seat and kept me there with almost one times my body weight. The rate of acceleration is absolutely staggering and amplified even further by the glorious sound of a wicked, hand-made V8 at full bore. Being the official safety car of the Formula One races, I’ve heard it before, but it is always drowned out by the 22 cars that are following behind it, so it was a bit like trying to hear your cell phone ringing in a rock concert. Out here on its own, while sitting smack bang in the middle of the engine and the quad exhausts, it is utterly violent. It is what I imagined Armageddon to sound like.

It is all very raw, but it hasn’t lost the Benz feel. Steering is still light and comfortable. Gear changes are quick and called up on the paddle shifters that rest just where your fingertips would naturally fall. It is not as visually assaulting as having those enormous banana style stalks, but they’re terribly effective and even though Ferrari and Maserati continue to disagree, it’s nice to have the paddles attached to the wheel, rather than the steering column, so as to have complete control when shifting mid corner.

Barely four seconds goes by, and before I can even milk second, I’m well over the hundred mark. I call up third. The world goes rushing by at an alarming and almost terrifying pace. Fourth. It feels like the paint could be peeling off the panels. Fifth. I can’t believe they pay me to do this job. Sixth. Our Father, who art in heaven…

To think there’s one more gear to go.

Up ahead, a delivery truck starts to fill up the view out of my windscreen. There’s nowhere to pass so I mash the brake pedal. The massive 19-inch tires, which look like watch straps around the forged aluminum wheels, dig into the coarse road surface, while the composite discs that are cooled by ducts in the front air dam wash off all the unwanted speed in an accelerated heart beat.  After remembering to breathe, I spend the next few seconds looking for the sunglasses that flew off my face.

As I build up speed again, the car feels beautifully balanced and agile, making me feel in total control. Even at insane speeds, it feels like it could handle even more power. The chassis is so rigid that it changes direction fluently, while the weight loss allows it to enter the turns at even higher speeds, giving you a crisp sharp turn in every single time. There is almost no body roll at all, and any understeer or oversteer is quickly dealt with a slight dab of power.

It’s true what they say: once you go Black, you can never go back.

I was having so much fun I totally lost track of time. So I headed back to the starting point as fast as I could. (Which wasn’t difficult, obviously) The generous owner almost collapsed from relief once he saw me. It took all the strength I could muster up to wipe off that silly, devilish grin off my face. It felt like returning your date home an hour late and facing her father after getting frisky with her in the car park an hour before.

The guilt is clinging to me like cheap cologne. You could smell my remorse from a quarter mile away. There was nervous laughter tracing around the owners words as he circled the car, checking each panel carefully and sniffing around for any abuse. Visually, there was none. Emotionally, well… that’s another story altogether.