Mercedes-Benz makes great luxury cars. They also happen to make greatperformance cars. Just the same, most people view the three-pointed star from a cosseting, comforting, prestigious point of view than anything else, a position that the brand has been trying so very hard to change. Through its in-house tuning shop, AMG, Mercedes-Benz has been able to inject sport into almost every model it makes, and in the process has brought out some pretty serious artillery. Most recently there??™s been the Black Series SLK 55 and CLK 63, which have come out with guns blazing, and how can anyone ignore the hopped up Mercedes-McLaren SLR 722? A car so awesome they??™ve named it after the legendary race car that Juan Manuel Fangio raced.

Sure, it??™s fun to talk about the 65-Series sedans, coupes and roadsters with their twin-turbocharged V12s that put out so much power they??™re actually electronically limited to prevent damage to the internals, but it??™s the mainstream stuff that always gets people talking, especially volume products like the AMG tuned E-Class, dubbed E55, which has been in a power race primarilywith BMW??™s M5 and Audi??™s S6. Another great one is the C-Class, which as a matter of fact was the first product that AMG modified after it had been officially integrated into Mercedes-Benz. The C-Class??™ tuned history spans quite a few years, from 1993 with the launch of the C36 AMG, to the V8-powered C43, and has also included the C32 Kompressor, not to mention the naturally aspirated C55, a prime example of using brute force to earn distinction amongst rivals. In the latest generation of AMG massaged C-Class, the numbers have continued to grow, now named C63.

Five years ago, 300 horsepower would have been considered serious output for a compact luxury car, but not any more as the game has since moved on to bigger and more glorious numbers. Take the Audi RS4, which features 420 horsepower from a 4.2-liter V8, an awe inspiring amount ofpower for such a small car. BMW then matched Audi??™s ante with its 420-hp 4.0-liter V8-powered M3. And Mercedes-Benz? Their engine is a 6.2-liter V8 that makes an outlandish 457 horsepower, which, besides putting others in a position to fold is only 20 horsepower off the pace of the engine that powers the C-Class DTM touring race car!

Being a big-bore engine, there??™s 442 lb-ft of torque on tap, 369 lb-ft of which is available between 2,000 and 5,000 rpm, an impressively flat torque curve given that there??™s no forced aspiration to speak of. This is the same engine that??™s been fitted to most of the new AMG cars, like the R-Class, CLK-Class and CL-Class, though the power rating is slightly less, as fitting this big engine into the C??™s little bay required some rather restrictive piping.

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Source: [url=http://www.autoracingdaily.com/article/2008_mercedes_benz_c63_amg_preview/]Auto Racing Daily[/url]