Mercedes-Benz AMG

AMG. Officially, the name comes from the founders' initials and their first place of business. In 1967 Hans Werner Aufrecht (A), Erhard Melcher (M) started turning Mercedes-Benz cars into race cars in Grossaspach (G). So now you know.

Unofficially it stands for some of the fastest, most powerful sports cars in the world. AMG is 51 per cent owned by Mercedes-Benz, and works exclusively on vehicles from the three-pointed star. It takes fantastic passenger cars, coupes and four-wheel drives, endows them with ridiculous amounts of power, and then beefs up the driveline, suspension and brakes to match.

The result is a car enthusiast's wet dream. In a country where rear-drive V8s are king, Mercedes-Benz's high-performance motor vehicles rule the roost -- admittedly at what can only be called an aspirational price. And it's all thanks to those three little initials -- AMG.

In October 2002 AMG celebrated its 35th anniversary. In December 2002 AMG enjoyed its best-ever sales year globally and in Australia. It sold 18,300 vehicles sold worldwide, predominantly in the USA and Germany. Australians bought 291 monstrous Mercs that year, and 2003 is projected to be bigger again.

The king of the current crop is the SL55AMG. Based on the stunning SL Roadster, the supercharged V8 convertible accelerates from 0-300km/h faster than any other road-registrable production vehicle in the world. But its reign might be coming to an end because the goliaths of grunt at AMG have unveiled a vehicle that makes the SL's 368kW of power look rather, well, inadequate.

Enter the CL65. It's based on the sleek, sexy CL coupe, designed by expatriate Australian Peter Arcadipane. Not content with the 368kW and 700Nm produced from its supercharged 5.5-litre V8 engine, AMG decided to up the ante. The result, from its new 6.0-litre, twin turbocharged V12 is the world's first 1000Nm car.

It gets better. AMG managing director Domingos Piedade told CarPoint the engine is actually detuned to 1000Nm because the gearbox and driveline components couldn't handle the 1200Nm they actually got out of the engine. For comparison, remember that Ford's new hero car, the 5.4-litre V8 GT, produces 520Nm of torque. Roughly half.

The good news for Australians is that the CL65, unlike the SLR super car, will be built in right-hand drive. And we can thank the United Kingdom for this, because our pitiful volumes don't come close to amortising the cost of RHD engineering. The UK's does. Ours helps.

Right-hand drive production starts in the northern winter 2003, and M-B Australia boss Matthias Luhrs believes he could sell around five of these thundering coupes a year, though potential buyers will need a lazy $450,000 (estimated) at the ready. AMG will also shoehorn the 462kW V12 into the S-class sedan, and it too will be built in right-hand drive, though M-B Australia hasn't considered this vehicle yet.

It took less than half of AMG's monstrous horsepower achievements to spark heated discussion on "how much is too much" in Australia in the 1970s. And, with 612hp (462kW) and 1000Nm on tap, the question has to be asked again: is this too much? Can anybody really use that much performance on public roads? Interestingly, the bloke who asked this question during our interview was Domingos Piedade himself.

"Our engine performance is market driven," says Piedade. "We do not build these cars purely because we want them. We build them because the market demands them. You may not use [the power], but it's nice to have."

In the last two years AMG's peak engine outputs have grown 78 per cent. In 2002 the ultimate AMG, the CL55, produced 265kW of power and 530Nm of torque. Today, the CL65 produces 462kW and 1000Nm. In two years, who knows? Piedade would not be drawn on what the future may bring, choosing instead to reiterate "what the market wants, we will build".

Forced induction is the key AMG used to unlock this seemingly boundless barrel of power. Supercharging on the 368kW/700Nm E55, twin-turbocharging on the mammoth 368kW/800Nm S600L. It's getting to the point now where BMW must look outside the square if the M3, M5 and new M6 is to match its Germanic competition.

BMW is said to be looking into a V10 engine for the next M5, though Piedade thinks even this may not be enough. "I do not think they can match our torque without forced induction," he said.

THE RANGE:
AMG's Australian range is impressive, and reiterates the stance that Australia gets a fair share of the product that is available in right-hand drive.