Mercedes-Benz have brought in the ultimate M-Class, the one with the magic three-letter suffix. We packed extra pairs of some things and went testing. Here’s what the ML63 AMG is like…
Story: Jim Gorde
Photography: Sanjay Raikar
You never mix drinking and driving. Never. However, AMG see it fit to mix insanity, leather and a deluge of power with driving and even ensure you get away with it each time, complete with a wide grin plastered on your face. Part of you doesn’t expect something so big to be so quick, the other part has noticed the badging and other clues from Affalterbach and wants to push it to see what it can do. So that’s where the balance-finding begins. Or have they done that already?
Mercedes have been on a roll, especially with their bad-to-the-bone, carbon-suited AMG performance models. The five-seater ML (W166) was launched barely a month after its big seven-seater sister, the GL. While the GL is one yours truly over two-and-a-half tonnes, the ML is 235 kilos lighter. The GL packs the new M157 5.5-litre BiTurbo V8 with 557 PS and 760 Nm. The ML, too, receives the same engine but in a slightly lower state of tune. Or so I thought. At the India launch of the ML63 AMG, Mercedes confirmed that the AMG Performance Pack, which raises power from 525 PS to 557 PS, would be offered as standard. There were shrieks of joy and a standing ovation at the launch ceremony which I was visualising in my mind while reading the details. So, then, this ML would not just be quicker than the GL, it would handle a tad better too.
I would say there is little to distinguish the AMG ML from its oil-burning twin to the layman. But those big AMG wheels, satin aluminium gills on the bonnet, the no-so-subtle ‘V8 BITURBO’ badging on the flanks and those three letters everywhere are like decals on a race-horse to me. Yes, it’s big, the lines are rather straight and the design is chunky and athletic, but very sober. However, standing outside and looking at it is just not the point, is it? You get in, you listen to it start and burble, try to count the cylinders to make sure they’re all firing away, and then you put your foot down. What happens next is the reason why you plonked those sacks of greenbacks down in the first place!
