por admin » Lun Ago 01, 2011 8:10 am
$127,000 por el Mercedes CLS63, el telescopio Ritchey-Chretien tiene el mismo precio y es el regalo que quiero para mi retiro, que tienen en comun, con los dos puedo ver a Dios. Dice Dan Neil. Un poco exagerado???
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Mercedes's Demon of Hurtling Mass
By DAN NEIL
Dan Neil reviews a $127,000 Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG fastback sedan, which he says offers incredible in the comfort of a well-appointed sedan but the realities of physics render it also just a little bit spooky.
.The price of this week's test car—$126,990 for the Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG—rang some materialistic bells for me. That's almost exactly the budget I had in mind for a retirement gift to myself: an observatory-quality Ritchey-Chrétien telescope, something in the half-meter range. I'd very much like to discover a comet or asteroid that, according to the International Astronomical Union, I'd then have the privilege to name. I'm leaning toward "Pickles."
My dream telescope and the murderin' Merc have much in common. They are both powerful. Each is a nanometer-precise, hand-built instrument (every engine from AMG, Mercedes's high-performance division, is signed by the technician who assembled it in Affalterbach). Both are notable for their focus. Among the Merc's sporting credentials: a top speed of 186 miles per hour (with the AMG Performance Package); a diamond-hard adaptive suspension; and, on our test car, AMG's enormous carbon-ceramic brakes. These computer-modulated binders will stop time, crabgrass, back hair, whatever you've got, but considering they are a $12,625 option, they ought to.
Mercedes-Benz USA
Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG
And with either the telescope or the Merc, you will see God.
Not to overstate the matter. This is not the quickest or fastest car I've driven lately, not by a long shot. However, it's one thing to crack off a 10-second, three-digit strafing run in a 3,200-pound Porsche 911. It's quite another thing to gather up all the splendid mass of a car like the Mercedes—4,277 pounds, says the company—and launch it, trebuchet-style, at the horizon. You're puttering along at 60 mph behind slower traffic. You come to a passing zone and, overtaking the laggards, you toggle down the seven-speed auto-clutch manual to third gear and romp the throttle. What happens next is strange, anomalous, a sudden and effortless overvaulting of inertia, a spasm of speed. One tick, two ticks. The landscape goes all shimmery and elastic. Your brain frame-drags a bit. The roar from the 5.5-liter, twin-turbo V8 sounds like the opening of the Morganza Spillway.
Fun? A day behind the wheel of this car equals the Gross National Happiness of Bhutan. The problem with this machine—and the Porsche Panamera Turbo, the Bentley Flying Spur, and any number of other galaxy-class sedans—is that physics will suffer only so much insult. If you have to back way out of the throttle or tighten your line significantly, you'll become reacquainted with the enormous, implacable momentum of the thing. Your adrenal glands start squirting fear hormones like squid ink. Whoa, horsey, whoa….
Photos: Ripping the Old Model to Shreds
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Mercedes-Benz USA
..Automotive science has almost banished the M from the A=F/M (acceleration=force/mass) equation. No car as big and heavy as the Mercedes has the right to accelerate this hard. The 19-inch tires are amazing, the chassis balance is tremendous, the steering precise to the arc-second, and the electronic stability interventions reassuring. But until they can scour the Higgs bosons from a car like this it will always be just a little bit spooky. The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, all 1,200 horsepower and 267 mph of it, is a miraculous piece of engineering, true, but it's oddly unsporting simply because it's such a thrown sledgehammer of mass (4,023 pounds). Give me a featherweight Lotus Evora any day.
Returning to the Mercedes, some shopkeeping: The 2012 model year represents the second-generation CLS. When the first-gen car arrived in 2004, it was a revelation, with a beautifully sleek fastback roof and arched, porpoise-like contour from headlight to taillight. This executive-class coupe-sedan styling was emulated by VW, Hyundai and Audi, among others, who deny the charge.
So the old CLS was pretty and influential. The new car rips it to shreds. There's nothing delicate, nothing elegant here. Dark angels and bad intent hover over the car. If it were a movie it'd have a soundtrack by Rammstein. The new CLS's fuselage is scored with two dramatic contour lines vectoring rearward to intersect with the punched-out rear-fender contour, which is a bit of a signature for Mercedes's design chief, Gorden Wagener. The AMG model further raises the temperature with wider front fender flares (helping to accommodate a 1-inch wider front track of the sport suspension) and a more pronounced hood bulge, as well as a huge, audacious Merc star. Finally, there's the full-LED headlamps and fog lamps that give the world the blinding robot stink-eye.
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Mercedes-Benz USA
.2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG
Base price: $94,900
Price as tested: $126,990
Powertrain: twin-turbocharged direct-injection 5.5-liter DOHC, 32-valve V8 with variable valve timing; seven-speed, multiplate auto-clutch manual transmission; rear-wheel drive with limited-slip differential
Horsepower/torque: 550 hp at 5,250-5,750 rpm/590 pound-feet at 1,700-5,000 rpm (with optional AMG Performance Package)
Length/weight: 196.7 inches/4,277 pounds
0-60 mph: 4 seconds (est.)
Top speed: 186 mph (with optional AMG Performance Package)
EPA fuel economy: 15/22 mpg, city/highway
Cargo capacity: 15.3 cubic feet
.I've had my doubts about Mr. Wagener as design chief, but I must admit, with this car he's beginning to win me over. He might also be in need of an exorcist.
The 2012 car gets a new engine too: a twin-turbo, 5.5-liter V8, replacing the previous 6.2-liter unit. The direct-injection bi-turbo raises output by 11 hp, to 518 hp. Opt for the $6,990 AMG performance package and Mercedes will happily dial up the turbos for you (from a max of 14.5 pounds per square inch to 18.9 psi) for an additional 32 hp (550 hp). The performance package also dispenses with the 155-mph electronic speed limiter. As for torque, the AMG version is the happy hunting grounds of twist: 590 pound-feet from 1,700-5,000 rpm.
For all the firepower, the car is quite a bit more fuel efficient than before (15/22 mpg, city/highway), thanks in part to the stop-start function. When the transmission is in the "C" mode, for "controlled efficiency," the engine goes to sleep at stop lights and the ECO indicator lights up on the instrument panel. I find this very entertaining, because when you lift off the brake and the engine relights, you hear it: the sound, the deep, molten rumble, the minor chaos of the propagating flame fronts racing through the cylinders. Oh my. This car is what primitive man had in mind when he invented fire. Umm, Grok like magic burning thing. Grok want twin turbo.
Like other AMG models, this car is a heroic handler if a bit of a broadsword. The seven-speed auto-manual gearbox includes five selectable programs, including RS, for Race Start (i.e., launch control). The Manual shifting program makes the car downright twitchy, with needle-sharp throttle response, raised rpm limits and 100-millisecond shifts. The new-model revision also includes a new, more sport-calibrated suspension, with coil springs up front and air springs in the rear, a stiffer antiroll bar in back, and a general banishing of elasticity. For a luxury car, the ride is a wee bit brutal. Drive this thing away from the Starbucks and you'll likely wear a lot of that latte.
To save you an email: Which one do I like better, this car or the Porsche Panamera Turbo? The Porsche is the better-handling car but, with all respect, compared with the CLS63 AMG the Panamera Turbo looks like a fat guy in a Tommy Bahama shirt.
If only Earth were a bigger place, to accommodate the Merc's maximal pace, its limits, its sheer mass. Perhaps a low-gravity, off-world colony? When I get my telescope, I'll look.
Corrections & Amplifications
In physics, acceleration equals force divided by mass. An earlier version of this article incorrectly gave the equation as acceleration=mass/force.
