Rocket 900 Desert Gold Edition

The fastest production car in the world, to the best of my knowledge, is the Hennessey Venom GT. A powerfully built monster on wheels that reached a superb speed of 435km/hr but due to a controversy was rejected by Guiness book of world records who then penned down the Bugatti Veyron as the fastest, which was recorded at a whooping 415km/hr, a full 20km/hr slower than the Hennesy. Such speeds are commonly known to be the domain of super cars; these sleek, sporty, mean machines that were designed for one purpose, speed!

 It came as a great surprise therefore when my petrolhead whatsapp groups became abuzz with images of a Mercedes S65 AMG with 6 tailpipes, 7 speed manual transmission and 400km/hr on the clock!! I admit, in the Mercedes Versus BMW war, I’m in the three pronged star battalion but that is not to say I dislike the ferocious BMW. The Mercedes Benz brand is reputably known for its luxurious appeal which is a hit among executives, as compared to its arch-rival. The image below shows the three images making their rounds on the mobile messaging platform, pictures which had me palpitating, out of breath and wishing deep in my heart I could just stumble upon US$300 000, I have never salivated this much for a car before. Ok truthfully I have, lots of times, but that’s not the point! Illusions however, can only do so much and I started mentally poking holes in the 400km/hr mean Merc story.

 

 1.       The image of the gear knob in the picture above: Mercedes, for their manual transmission cars, have for the past couple of years been using black leather gear knobs with a flowing silver/chrome accent top. The design itself is stylish and elegant and not plain as the gear knob in the image above, a knob I have long since established belongs to the menacing 7-speed Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 7 by General Motors. Compare with image below:

2.       The clock on the dashboard looks a lot like the one they put on the Mercedes Benz C200 AMG W202, 16 years ago and not like their current work yet the S65 body framework depicted in the Whatsapp imagery belongs to that of a relatively current edition. In essence, the clock should have borne a close resemblance to the clock on a W205 version. The image on the left below belongs to a W202 model while the one on the right, to the latest version, the W205.

 It was time to separate between fantasy and reality so I embarked on a mammoth quest of collecting all the information I could on the S65 and all affiliated tune-ups. Could it be untrue that an S65 exists which could reach speeds of up to 400km/hr? I understood of course that this was not the forte of the luxurious coupes and sedans, even the tuned up AMG. The best way to determine the truth of this was to visit the source, the awe-inspiring, mesmerizing Mercedes Benz AMG official website with its welcoming throaty sound of a V8 engine revving. The website claimed that their latest tuned S65 offering boasted the following specs:

“AMG 6.0-Liter V12 Biturbo Engine Handcrafted by Mercedes-AMG One Man – One Engine 0-100 km/h: 4.3 s 463 kW (630 hp).Top speed: 250 km/h/ 300 km/h* (Electronically Limited)”

Not to be dramatic or anything but even an electronically limited 300km/hr speed is a far cry from the 400km/hr I was looking for. A 100km/hr difference is way too much to be attributed to a limiter, it just is not possible. Unfortunately even the current official AMG was nowhere near the images I received, that left only one logical explanation, the images are doctored! On close inspection none of those images look doctored!! This was baffling. As I was about to give up, a realization dawned on me, AMG is not the only Mercedes Benz tuning entity!!! AMG, ART, BINZ, ASMA, BRABUS, Carlsson, Expression Motorsport, GSC, FAB Design, GWA, Hamann, Henessey, Kicherer etc are all Merc Tuners!! Hope was not lost yet!!!

Unleashing The Beast

World renowned German tuner, Brabus, in March last year revealed the 625kW 5.9-litre turbo V8 version of Mercedes’ 63 AMG coupe with an electronically limited top speed of 350km/h at the Geneva Motorshow. This automatically became the “world’s fastest coupe” but despite that, the initial notion had been that the vehicle in question was a Sedan. I researched further and finally found it. A Brabus tuned Mercedes S65 AMG with 7 speed automatic transmission that literally had 400km/hr marked on the clock!! Dubbed the Rocket 900 Desert Gold Edition, this spectacular result of exceptionally brilliant automotive ingenuity is truly a spectacle to behold, a masterpiece, an icon for the ages! It was unveiled at the Dubai Motorshow and left the crowd in bewilderment pondering just who would ever consider splurging on such an intricate piece of mastery.

Brabus maintained all major aspects of the original S65 AMG and allowed the Rocket 900 to remain a rear-wheel drive high-performance sedan, which can handle the 0-100 km/hr sprint in merely 3.7 seconds and then reaching 200 km/h in 9.1 seconds!! Yes, the time it takes you to scratch an itch, this rocket will already be at 100km/hr from a complete standstill! The “Desert Gold” hue has been mated to the carbon fiber custom add-on body kits Brabus is famous for. I do not know about you, but this is truly the most epic sedan I have ever seen. 

Consider this, a gulfstream 650 private jet (G6) takes to the air at a speed of 280km/hr, a speed at which this equally luxurious carbon fiber based vehicle will still be aching for more even while still on the ground (friction + resistance). The Rocket 900, limiter excluded, has a top speed of almost half the G6’s cruising speed, meaning all things held constant, this one of a kind sedan will, theoretically, take double the time taken by the G6 to reach a destination!! If those stas and pictures below do not convince you, it’s time you buy a horse and carriage!