BERLIN: Because too much is never enough, and because this decade’s outrageous horsepower wars have deadened our innate sense of what counts as too extreme, this is what we’ve come to: the Mansory-modified Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG with 986 horsepower. Because you can’t get heated seats on a JATO rocket.
This adjective-straining exercise in audacity reworks just about every spinny, boosty, and breathy component of the S63 AMG’s engine-a 5.5-liter twin-turbo V-8 that made a very respectable 577 horsepower before Mansory got its mitts on it.
But this is the future, son, and here in the future we want four-doors withpower figures that breathe down the neck of the Bugatti Veyron.
So here you have it, a big-body executive sedan electronically limited to 1032 lb-ft of torque, assumedly because any more would make your bespoke diesel locomotive jealous. A vehicle Mansory says will blast from a dead stop to 62 mph in 3.2 seconds, faster than a Pagani Huayra, which, we should point out, has neither the S63’s passenger capacity nor its cell0-swallowing trunk.
And dare we say it, Mansory’s land-bound business jet actually comes off somewhat, er, subtle. Yes, it’s festooned in 22-inch wheels and more linear feet of carbon fibre than you’d find in the first three Fast & Furious movies, but coming from the tuning house that thought the Ferrari F12berlinetta needed more airscoops, this Benz announces its custom-ness at a volume somewhere below a full-throated scream.
If restraint is more your thing, Mansory also offers a daintier package with a mere 788 horsepower and 885 lb-ft of torque. But come on, it’s almost 2015. Who ever heard of settling for less horsepower?
