The S 65 AMG Coupe Driven & Reviewed - SA's Most Expensive Mercedes Benz

Right now .

This is the most expensive Mercedes Benz money can buy .

It's called the S 65 AM G coupe and it has a starting price of 3.1 million rand .

It is also the most powerful Mercedes Benz ever .

There is nothing like a V 12 .

This particular engine is a six liter by Turbo Monster six liters .

That means it's the same as six new Ford focuses or three engines in the new golf , but it's the way it delivers its power , which is so special .

It's brutal , but in a very polite and elegant way , a bit like a nightclub bouncer who quotes from Shakespeare right before he punches you in the face .

There it is hand crafted by Petro Go something .

It produces 463 kilowatts and 1000 Newton meters of torque .

That's more power than a Ferrari 405 8 .

More power than a Nissan G T R and more power than a Bentley Continental W 12 .

And to put that , to figure in perspective , it offers more Newton meters than a Lamborghini Aventador and a mini Cooper s combined .

And all of that immense brutality is sent through a seven speed dual clutch gearbox to the rear wheels where the Germans come up against the laws of physics .

The thing is with all of that power , everything happens very quickly .

And so we've set up a bit of an experiment .

We have a slow motion camera outside the car which is going to try and capture the moment 1000 Newton meters arrives at the rear tires .

Here we go .

Foot on the brake , foot on the accelerator live .

Yeah .

But where this big mer absolutely laughs in the face of physics is in the corners .

A car this big should not handle like this .

You can really throw this thing around and that's thanks to an army of electronic aids .

The most important of which is magic body control .

It uses stereoscopic cameras behind the rear view mirror to scan the road ahead and set up the suspension for incoming imperfections .

But for the first time in a production car , it uses that information to drop like a motorbike or a high speed train to lean into the corner and counter all the G forces and it works .

And it seems Mercedes Benz rarely wanted to carry the theme of magic into the interior .

Simply flicking this button over here will send electric current through the roof glass which changes it from clear to tinted to block the sun .

I think that actually is magic .

There are six types of massage for driver and passenger Hm .

Do I feel like classic or activating classic ?

The screen in front of me shows the night vision which can pick up pedestrians in complete darkness and then covers them in red so that I can see them more easily .

The car will cruise by itself , steer itself park itself and crawl automatically in traffic .

The headlights are crammed full of Swarovski crystals .

Meaning the replacement costs on each unit is 45,000 RAND and the reverse camera pops out James Bond style from the badge .

It seems like everything in here has a magic trick .

This center screen , for instance , can show two completely different things to the passenger and the driver , the passenger gets this remote control to control all their media so they can watch a movie using the wireless headphones while the driver still checks his media and his navigation and changes his massage seat .

Don't smell popcorn in my car .

The Mercedes Benz S 65 AM G coupe is hideously expensive , but it is quite special .

I can't think of another car which blends the best of the past under the bonnet with the best of the future in here .

It manages to be an ultra luxury barge which is also a driver's car , but maybe its greatest trick of all is that if you don't feel like driving , you don't have to activate dis tronic plus switch on your steering assist and relax .

So , uh , I'm not steering , I'm not braking I'm not changing gears and I'm not accelerating .

The future is very comfortable , quite like it .