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30/03/2009
By EWAN KENNEDY
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Mercedes AMG has a wide range of high-performance vehicles aimed at the enthusiast who demands nothing but the best. Built in a special factory in Germany these ultra-hot models are designed as total packages. Though the engines tend to garner the greatest amount of publicity, a considerable amount of work is done on the transmission, suspension, steering and braking systems.
 These are cars that can genuinely be driven to work during the week then taken to the track for a hard thrash at the weekend.
In Germany where enlightened authorities understand that correct driving is far more important to crash avoidance than setting ultra-low speed limits and fanatically policing them, AMG Mercs travel on the motorways at speeds that would see you being jailed in Australia. Yet they don’t have any more crashes than we do. In this country we suggest you get your kicks from any high-performance cars away from public roads.
One way of doing that is for an AMG owner to talk to Mercedes about a drive day at an iconic Australian motorsport location. Last year owners were given the opportunity to drive on the most famous track of all, that on the hill out back of Bathurst. They had a wonderful day driving a big variety of AMG models specially prepared for the day. And the opportunity to sit beside racing car drivers and/or professional driving instructors. This was by way of either thrill rides or a chance to have a critique of their own driving styles.
Even that mighty effort at Bathurst was trumped this year when AMG owners were given the chance to go for a very quick trip around the Grand Prix circuit at Albert Park in Melbourne. Better still, while the Bathurst run was done well away from any race weekend, the drive at Albert Park was done the day before the F1 teams started to set up their cars for this year’s Australian Grand Prix.
Selected motoring journalists were invited and I was fortunate enough to find my name on the list. Though I've plenty of driving experience in all sorts of cars, including fast ones at race tracks, this was a special experience for me. I occasionally get flayed by my critics for daring to suggest that some of Australia's speed limits are too low. But I always drive at sensible speeds, and feel that paying just two speeding tickets in 45 years of driving suggests I'm doing something right.
And I get far more messages in favour of my campaign for reasonable speed limits than against it.
Normally I keep a fair margin of safety in my driving, even at race tracks, driving at about eight tenths in racing-car parlance on track and very seldom going over seven tenths on the road. And even then only for brief periods if I'm on the open road.
But so good were these hot Mercedes that I really pushed them very hard, getting them right out of shape on two occasions, but marvelling when I did so at just how easy the car was to control. The steering really does seem to read your mind and the suspension and tyres respond and grip through everything from 210 km/h blasts down Albert Park’s main straight to 80 km/h tight turns.
Then there are the brakes. Brakes that haul speed off fast enough to make passengers squeamish in the tummy if they experience it for too long.
And sounds from the engine, in particular the exhaust note, are to die for. These AMG V8s are obviously designed for performance and efficiency, but the engineers are well aware that an engine must sound and feel right or their customers won't be happy.
Of course, the performance from the engine is even more important than its sound and I came away extremely impressed by the almost instantaneous response to the accelerator and the wonderful push-in-the-back acceleration it produces.
All-in-all a wonderful day and I can't wait for the next one. I've already dropped a hint to Mercedes’ PR chief, David McCarthy that Monte Carlo would be a good location, but he says he has set his sights even higher and may fly me to the moon. Even better I thought at the time, but afterwards considered there might have been some leg pulling happening. But who knows, I've been an eternal optimist for a long time now...
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