Until the Mercedes-Maybach S 600 arrives, this is the most expensive three-pointed star car money can buy in Australia. On that basis alone, this had better be good...
Mercedes-Benz S 65 AMG
It’s an incredibly fast, incredibly comfortable way to cover ground. Think of it as a private jet for the street and you won’t be far away from either the speed or the intent of the S 65 AMG. It’s not flawless and there will never be many of them in the country, but it’s hard to see the lucky few being anything but happy.
The fans of the big V12 motors in Mercedes-Benz and AMGs don’t particularly care if the engines aren’t the most sophisticated things emerging out of the German car industry at the moment.
They don’t even care that they’re not the most sophisticated things emerging out of AMG, with its two glorious biturbo V8s boasting grab baskets of tech goodies that are a decade ahead of the bigger motor.
To any arguments that suggest they could have a better engine with lower economy and similar performance for less money, they will just shrug, sign another cheque and just point to the badge on the tail that says “V12”.
This incredible loyalty to its biggest engine covers only a sliver of Benz’s fanbase, but it’s a very lucrative sliver, filled with the “right” kind of customers for AMG’s flagships.
And, when you drive the new S 65 AMG, you kind of get their point. Bound for Australia early next year at an entry price of, gulp, $490,000, the big limousine has enough power and torque to behave like a sportscar, at least in a straight line.
It is stuffed with 1000Nm and there are precious few non-Mercedes V12 production cars in history that have reached that milestone. The Bugatti Veyron had more than that (1200Nm) while the Audi Q7 V12 TDI had 1000Nm, but few others get close.
Yes, there is also 463kW and it’s nothing to sneeze at, but that happens from 4800-5400rpm so it takes some climbing and commitment to get enough revs onboard to get all those kilowatts playing at the same time. The torque, though, is there from 2300rpm (though not in first or second gear) and on full throttle it will stay there, grinding out 1000Nm, before it begins to taper away from 4300rpm.
Of course, even tapering away from 1000Nm leaves you with, oh, 800Nm or so at 5000rpm.
It’s enough urge to get the [very] big rig to 100km/h in 4.3sec and, though it’s limited to 250km/h, it can have its limiter removed by AMG (for a fee and a set of tyres) to reach up to its new limiter at 305km/h.
That doesn’t mean it’s up there with the AMG V8’s for technical modernity, though. The V12 still uses a three-valve cylinder head, for example, and it hasn’t been upgraded to direct fuel-injection. It doesn’t even have variable valve timing or lift.
At least its powertrain has been upgraded over the years to use a seven-speed automatic transmission (it used to have a five-speeder), but it’s a dedicated rear-wheel drive, with no option (even in left-hand drive markets) to use the V8’s all-wheel drive system.
For all that it lacks, it delivers incredible, surging sophistication all the way across its rev range. It somehow manages to marry brutality with elegance and gets away with it perfectly.
It starts all deep and soft sounding and it can stay that way, if you prefer. Then it rides much like a limousine, with easy performance on tap at any point, calmness to its initial throttle opening and soft, easy gearshifts.
It’s in this standard mode that the S 65 is in its best mindset to mate up with the Magic Body Control, which uses stereo scanners to read the road surface ahead of the car and feeds that information to the active air suspension, which then effectively eradicates what imperfections lurk beneath.
It’s incredibly effective at speeds below about 70km/h and is so eerily, spookily level below 40km/h that, at a constant speed, you could comfortably play snooker inside it over standard, lumpy city streets. The only impact bumps make on it at low speed is in the noise they make.
Its impact reduces as speeds rise, with the damper units having less and less time to prepare for the impacts, to send the wheel and tyre up or down to suit the road beneath. Nonetheless, whatever the S 65 lacks in engine tech its suspension makes up for in computing prowess.
Then there are the seats, ably cushioned and ready to nullify any vertical loads that slip past the suspension. But there’s more.
For starters, there’s a higher grade of trim than even the S 63, with Nappa leather roof lining, diamond quilting in the leather everywhere, a full leather dashboard and wood trim everywhere else.
Besides its own AMG instrument cluster, it also has a 6.5 x 4.5cm touch pad in the armrest, which recognises one-, two- or three-fingered gestures and there’s a 21 x 7cm head-up full-colour display as well.
The seats have more lateral support than the stock S-Class units, and they need to. The rear seats can recline and the rear passenger diagonally behind the driver can move the front seat forward at the touch of a button to create more legroom.
All of this is impressive enough in the C mode (no, it’s not “comfort”, but “controlled efficiency”), but the car comes into its own in Sport. It’s fast, it’s louder, it’s easy to drive quickly and it corners with a level of enthusiasm you just couldn’t credit without being inside one of the things when it’s being hustled. And it does it all without ever crossing the line into discomfort. Ever.
A part of this is another algorithm written into the suspension brain that delivers AMG’s Dynamic Cornering Assist, which actually works. It effectively eliminates understeer anywhere in a corner by reading the road, the steering angle, the g forces and the brake and throttle settings, along with the driver’s style, to give carefully planned brake dabs on the rear wheels to adjust the car’s stance.
It just never feels like it’s going to run out of road and, despite all the speed and power, you’d have to be doing something demonstrably cavalier to pitch it off the road.
The engine’s note is a bit more prominent in Sport (and Manual) mode, too, but it’s never too intrusive, even if it’s never a chore to hear the thing working, either lazily or at maximum attack.
It’s also the mode that delivers the throttle cut for each gearshift to bring more crackle and faster shift times, and 12 cylinders of twin turbo bigness delivers a lot of exhaust gas to crackle and pop.
It delivers a lot of exhaust gas because it slurps a lot of fuel. AMG has enthusiastically embraced its reduction of 2.4L/100km compared to the old S 65 (largely due to start-stop in C mode), but this still leaves it swigging 11.9L/100km on the NEDC Combined cycle and it will guzzle a lot more in the real world, where you won’t be able to resist the bottom half of the throttle travel.
And, when you do use the bottom half of its throttle travels, you might as well wash the instant speed off with the optional carbon-ceramic brakes, with 420mm of diameter up front. And, while you’re at it, you might as well upgrade from the standard double polished 20-inch alloy wheels, because there are a lot of options to host the 255/40 R20 front and 285/35 R20 rear tyres.
Not that anybody in the market for an S 65 AMG will care too much about its economy.
Or its weight... Or the low-tech nature of its engine... Or its price... Or anything else!
You want this car for its 12 cylinders or you don’t. And you won’t care a jot that the S 63 AMG is actually a better car in just about every way.
2015 Mercedes-AMG S 65 pricing and specifications:
Price: $490,000
Engine: 6.0-litre, petrol, biturbo V12
Output: 463kW/1000Nm
Transmission: seven-speed automatic
Fuel: 11.9L/100km
CO2: 279g/km
Safety rating: Not tested
| What we liked: | Not so much: |
| >> Awesome urge, all the time | >> Old-tech engineering |
| >> Plush and exquisite seats | >> Some cheap interior plastics |
| >> Low-speed ride | >> S 63 AMG is a better car |
