This car should not exist. With all of the environmental regulations that are strangling the performance car industry, and the large economic crisis at had, the last thing that you would expect out of a car company is a super SUV. Why would Mercedes be so risky? What do they have to prove? Here is what I think: the boys at AMG and Mercedes have been hard at work making their cars greener and more economical. All of this put fast cars on the back shelf and the designers were so fed up with all of this diesel this and hybrid that, that they decided to have a field day. And this is the result.
The idea of a super SUV was first taken into the modern age with the BMW X5M, which is very ugly. The principle was very simple: take a big car that is ment for taking the kids to school, and put a massive engine in it, no matter what the cost. Fortunately, I have had the honor of seeing one on the road recently, which means that BMW met its sales goal of 1. Mercedes must have some large cajones to be putting out a brand new super SUV when performance car sales are at all time lows. However, AMG feels that there is a large enough market of rich fathers who, for some reason would rather have this car than a regular ML as well as a Porche Boxter for the same price. So what is the reason for buying this car? For its cool factor. Let me explain- in our day and age and in America, we like other people knowing that we are rich without telling them that you are. The best way to do this is to be very vulgar with your choice of car, and this one does the job perfectly. Obviously, an onlooker will see that you own an utterly preposterous car, but then think, "wow, that person has not thought about fuel economy, saving the planet, value for money, comfort, or practicality. They must be doing well." If you own this car, the Joneses do not stand a chance.
Now lets get to the specs. With the ML, you get a twin-turbo V8 that produces 518 bhp and is sent to all four wheels via a 7-speed automatic transmission with a manual shifting mode. This power will get you to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds and on to a limited top speed of 155 mph. These kinds of figures are in the sports car range, but they should be, for the kind of money that one must shell out for one of these things. Well, its not going to get any better, so here it goes... it costs 100 grand. With that price, this car is stupid. If you are going to spend that much money on a car, just buy a BMW M5, I promise that you will be much happier.
This is a car that not many people will buy. But that is not the point of it, the point of this car is to show us that AMG is still a crazy, half mad tuning company that is ready to make a stupid car that we all love, but never want.
