After accidentally leaking a preview on its home-market configuration website last week, Mercedes-Benz has officially unveiled its revised flagship luxo-muscle sedans, the S63 AMG and S65 AMG, at the 2009 Shanghai Motor Show today. Both are treated to the same updates given to the entire S-Class range, but these two big beasts pack one seriously mean punch.

Engines carry over largely unchanged from the outgoing models, which is good news because they're some of the most powerful units on the market. The S63 packs AMG's 6.2-liter V8 offering up 525 horsepower and 465 lb-ft of torque, while the top-of-the-line, have-to-have-the-best S65 AMG (above) features an enormous 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12 pumping out 612 horsepower and a gravity-altering 738 lb-ft of torque. That's a lot of power, but at nearly $200k, the $130k S63 seems like a relative bargain, especially when you consider that the bi-turbo V12 model only gains 0.2 seconds off the V8's 0-60 time.

Although the engines are ostensibly the same, they've been tweaked to improve fuel consumption and carbon emissions by about 3%. They're also both mated to a new Torque Vectoring system that brakes the inside rear wheel in a corner to assist handling, plus a crosswind compensation system. Visually the AMG sedans get a new chromed-up angular grille, LED daytime running lights in the air intakes, full LED tail-lights incorporating 52 LEDs apiece, and a redesigned rear bumper with an integrated diffuser, plus all the requisite special badging and wheels. The interior has also been upgraded with bells and whistles, all of which you can read in the press release after the jump and view in the galleries below.





[Source: Mercedes-Benz, Autoblog Chinese]

Of all the fashion/automotive collaborations we've seen, few are as bonkers as those of A Bathing Ape fashion house designer Nigo. The Japanese icon has given the BAPE treatment to some of the most expensive automobiles on the market, including camo'd Rolls-Royce Phantoms and pink Bugatti Veyrons. But now, after laying hands on Volkswagen's Bugatti and BMW's Rolls-Royce, Nigo has forked over his stylish cash to Mercedes-Benz tuning division AMG for a modern riff on a classic 300SL Gullwing.

So far, only this dedication plaque has surfaced, but that tells us all we need to know. The vehicle in question appears to have started its life as a 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300SL, but undergone an engine swap this year to place a modern 6.0-liter V8 under the hood. No word on what styling tweaks may have been carried out, but we wouldn't be surprised if the vintage Benz proved hard to find in a tinted jungle.

UPDATED with images and gallery.



[Source: Bespoke Ventures]

That's the way it goes with fashion: it's on the runway in Paris in March and in a bucket at Big Lots by September. Mercedes-Benz' in-house tuning arm, AMG, has decided to turn with the popular tide and call time on horsepower brinkmanship, with the division boss saying, "We are going to use other ways to extract better performance, including weight saving, engine optimization and alternative technologies."

What's the new fashion? Getting the most out of the least. AMG is going to do that by losing weight, installing tech like the SL63 AMG's wet clutch gearbox on the coming E63 AMG, and possibly re-engineering Mercedes' diesel, hybrid, and four-cylinder engines for AMG duty.

Not too long ago, imagining an A-Class AMG would have been beyond comprehension, but this is the future. We just hope everyone has thought through the consequences: with the reins being pulled on increasingly powerful motors, this is going to put a lot of horses out of work. And that makes the possibility of an equine industry bailout something we can't rule out...

[Source: Autocar]

In case there was any doubt that demand for big-displacement, high-output machines continues unabated in the face of calls for environmentally-conscious hybrids and a faltering global economy, Mercedes has announced an ambitious expansion of its AMG performance division. Over the course of the next year, AMG will open a whopping 175 new "performance centers" catering to power-mad consumers around the world.

The new outlets will allow an increased level of involvement for AMG customers as Mercedes moves to distinguish the tuning house's offerings as their own brand. Each outlet will be outfitted with matching décor and whatnot, but more importantly, will offer customers a direct line to AMG's performance Mecca in Affalterbach, Germany, and act as a local home base for the AMG Performance Roadshow. The expansion will focus on 15 key markets, including the United States, Japan, China, and of course, its home market of Germany. As if customers needed any more coercion to fall for a fire-breathing Teutonic masterpiece of engineering. Hit the jump for the details.

Typically when "music" is mentioned in the same sentence as AMG, it's in relation to the deep burble emanating from the exhaust pipes. But with all that Teutonic, sound-deadened cabin comfort, customers of the Mercedes tuning division have come to expect an equally impressive performance from inside the cabin. To that end, AMG has signed a new deal with the Danish audio gurus at Bang & Olufsen to provide their high-end automotive sound systems for these high-powered Mercedes models.

The deal is the third such agreement brokered by B&O, whose systems already appear in Audis and Aston Martins, spearheading a market proliferation that surely influenced the decision-makers in Affalterbach. Both AMG and Bang & Olufsen were clearly elated by the deal, and you can feel the sheer unbridled joy in the statement from AMG chairman Volker Mornhinweg: "Mercedes-AMG represents high performance and exclusivity. The same is true of Bang & Olufsen's in-car sound systems. Jointly, we are therefore able to meet Mercedes-AMG customers' expectations to sound systems." Contain yourself, Volk. Follow the jump to read the rest of the press release.

[Source: Bang & Olufsen]

Fans of the classic Gullwing Mercedes 300 SL have been eagerly awaiting the new Gullwing SLC supercar, which Mercedes' tuning house AMG has been spied working on over the last year. But if emerging reports are to be believed, the SLC won't wear a Mercedes badge at all. The true successor to SLR McLaren will reportedly be the first vehicle to be badged exclusively as an AMG product, forgoing the vaunted three-pointed star altogether.

Reports also indicate that with dimensions of 4650mm long, 2700mm wheelbase, 1950mm wide, and 1250mm high, the SLC will be similar in proportions to a Ferrari F430. Project C197, as the Gullwing SLC is internally known, is expected to make its debut at the 2010 Geneva show, with a cloth-roofed convertible R197 version to follow a year later.

[Source: Car via eurocarblog]

It sits there, all tension and sinew, ready to pounce on lesser cars. Start it up and it barks with a clear V8 voice that thumps off the neighbor's house, setting them discreetly peeking from behind their lace curtains. This is an SLK? Oh yeah. No longer a blocky Benz with dwarfism, the SLK55 AMG ripples with muscle and delivers speed like a spin kick to the temple. A bad-ass Mercedes, indeed.



Photos Copyright ©2008 Dan Roth / Weblogs, Inc.

Some people are just pathological. At first, it was amusing that Fresh C280, a member of the MDStreetScene forums, would claim to own a Mercedes CLS55 AMG. How a 19-year-old affords a car that normally retails for around $100,000 is the first thing that made everyone on the forum suspicious. A story about a digital camera becoming a sewage buoy was also an immediate head scratcher, since the pic he posted supposedly came from said camera. Further cementing the obvious dementia was the claim that the picture was taken during a dyno run in New York. It could be New York, except right now it's chilly early spring in the Empire State, and the dyno run picture clearly shows garage bays with the doors flung open and leaves on trees. It gets better as it becomes clear how many balls this kid's trying to juggle to hold up his story. There's a nice little synopsis that debunks the girlfriend angle – even though it's supposedly her car.

It didn't take long for total pwnage to occur when Fresh C280s fellow Maryland car enthusiasts did a little detective work. The car is actually owned by a CarDomain member named Xavier, who hails from Florida and showed up with proof of ownership around 30 pages in. All of the pictures posted to the MDStreetScene bulletin board were stolen from the actual owner's CarDomain page. This is weirder than the guy who thought up direct exhaust injection. The makings of a character study are all there – apparent delusional schizophrenia, a longing to be somebody, a sad little existence, and completely self-inflicted massive public humiliation. There's even a cameo by a famous lolcat. It doesn't get better than this, folks, the thread is only a day old so far. Check it out for yourself, it gets good around page 6. Oh, and Fresh C280's quote at the bottom of his posts is oddly prescient. Thanks for the tip, Terry!

[Source: MDStreetScene]

The world's major sportscar-makers all have major parent companies behind them: Ferrari and Maserati have the Fiat Group while Lamborghini (and Bugatti) are under the VW/Audi umbrella. Pagani Automobili SpA, however, remains independent, but hooked up with Mercedes to provide the motivation in the heart-racing Zonda supercar. Not to worry, though, because by all accounts the V12 engine that AMG builds by hand for Pagani is an awesome powerplant. Its displacement and output have increased from six liters and 408 horsepower in the original C12 to 7.3 liters and 602 hp in the latest Zonda F. With dedicated development like that, it would be foolish for Pagani to look elsewhere or consider designing its own engine. So it's probably a good sign that Pagani and AMG have renewed their partnership, the fruits of which we're looking forward to seeing in the highly anticipated successor to the Zonda, whenever it debuts.

[Source: Pagani]

Click the image above for more hi-res shots of the SL63

Two doors, no top, red leather interior, ceramic brakes, and 538 horses is a combination you once expected to be named for an Italian city or racing personage. No more. And while the alpha-numeric SL63 might not be all that Germanic in itself, it gets no more Teutonic than the hyphenated moniker "Mercedes-Benz" that precedes it. Now that Merc is making cars as fast as those of its Latin neighbor, perhaps the SL63 -- being a tad more comfortable -- is the car you drive to go check on the progress of your bespoke Italian supercar. Check out the hi-res gallery of the Bahn-burningest droptop.