Films and cars have a lot in common. Some
films aim to be as realistic as possible, and put their characters through
situations that are very likely to happen to you and me. And then there are
sci-fi films, which specialize in the surreal, the out-of-proportion, the
fantastic. Usually, a science experiment goes wrong and the boy-next-door turns
into a superhero or supervillain (depending on who’s playing him).
Cars can be like this too. With Mercedes,
it’s the town of Affalterbach, located in Baden-Württemberg in Southern
Germany. Affalterbach is home to AMG, a Mercedes-Benz division, whose primary
mission is to transform garden variety Mercs into monsters. Once the
metamorphosis is complete, they stick an AMG badge at the rear.
The
Mercedes GL63 is the powerhouse of the GL range
Affalterbach has been sending these monster
Mercs to India for a while now, in the form of the G63, the E63, and the SLK55,
to name a few. And now, it’s bringing a new trick to the party. And it’s a
beast all right, with enough muscle to scare the daylights out of you. This is
the GL63 AMG.
Before we get to the details, a quick word
on acquiring one – you can buy it from any Mercedes dealer for $279,765
(ex-showroom, Mumbai).
What makes the GL a bona fide monster is
its heart, which is handcrafted in Affalterbach. The 5.5-litre engine, aided by
two turbos, is tuned to make 557bhp – more power than it makes in any other
tune. And that’s not all. It can generate enough power to pull a fully-loaded
Boeing 747. True story. A full 760Nm of it. At any point, no matter what speed
you’re doing, you push the throttle in and the thing takes off like a missile.
A fat, heavy missile.
Big
bumpers, LEDs and 21in alloy wheels are all fitted as standard
The boss at the AMG facility says a great engine
is not one that makes insane power; it is one that sounds great while making
insane power. And a dab of the GL63’s throttle proves his point. It’s loud,
it’s heavy, it’s fantastic. And the sound gets even more entertaining when you
downshift – the ’box blips the throttle to produce a nice throaty roar. Superb.
Of course, no point having great power on
paper if there isn’t enough of it to put down on tarmac. And the GL63 AMG does
that job well too. The 7-speed Speed shift Plus sends just the right amount of
power to all four wheels, making sure none of the juice is wasted in spinning
your tyres and literally going up in smoke.
The
engine note is as outrageous as its performance
Bury the throttle and keep it that way, and
what do you get? Well, you reach 100kph from standstill in less than five
seconds, to begin with. That’s encroaching on sportscar territory? Encroaching,
my foot. That’s enough to put some sportscars to shame.
Okay, hold on now, if you think this is the
best sportscar-disguised-as-SUV. Because it’s one thing to propel itself
immensely quickly down a straight line; it’s quite another to also be agile and
confident around corners. This thing could very well be a drag-strip champ, but
a driver’s SUV also needs to be great handler. Sure, it’s quick, no doubt, but
its heavyweight structure plays spoilsport around bends.
