Mercedes-Benz Is Keeping Some Fast Company

By TERRIL YUE JONES

April 11, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Chuck Wesley knows a thing or two about driving.

The 49-year-old purchasing director for a Van Nuys printing company says he’s owned 50 or 60 cars over the years. He keeps two turbocharged 1987 Buick Grand National muscle cars in storage to give to his sons, now 6 and 10, as their first wheels.

So which of his nine current cars makes him grin the most when he’s at the wheel? One of his two beefy Chevy Impala SS’s? Or maybe his powered-up Ford Lightning pickup truck?

Nope. He zips to work up and down the San Diego Freeway--when it’s not bumper-to-bumper--in his 2001 Mercedes-Benz CLK55 AMG.

Driving a Mercedes can be comfortable, but what cranks Wesley’s starter is that the 342-horsepower CLK is the fastest Mercedes ever built for the public.

The AMG designation refers to Mercedes-Benz’s little-known high-performance division.

To those in the know, it means horsepower, sculpted front and side skirts, more horsepower, and high-performance engines built entirely by a single technician. Did we mention horsepower?

While Mercedes-Benz has roared past Lincoln and Cadillac in the last two years to become the No. 2 luxury brand in the U.S., barely trailing Lexus, it has also quietly been building up its AMG division, with eight of its models featuring AMG versions for the U.S. market this year.

The M-Class AMG, also with 342 horsepower, is the world’s fastest sport-utility vehicle.

Combining the tuning division’s technical abilities with Mercedes’ reputation for unparalleled craftsmanship and luxury, Mercedes AMGs put out 342 to 354 horsepower and would churn out mind-numbing speed except they are electronically capped at 155 miles per hour--part of a gentleman’s agreement among German auto manufacturers, except for Porsche, to limit their luxury high-performance vehicles to that speed.

Speed aside, these finely tuned Mercedes models have only subtle appearance differences from the models on which they are based: sculpted front air dams and tire wells, chic wheels. They’re not attention-grabbers that scream “Look at me!” And that’s just the way buyers such as Wesley like it.

“I get what I want,” Wesley says, the power of a two-seat race car but in a vehicle that is big enough so the family can ride along. He uses his four-seat AMG to commute to his office from his home in Culver City.

The stock Mercedes-Benz E430 model with its 4.3-liter, 275-horsepower V-8 “is just not the same. Between the suspension and the horsepower, this [AMG] car handles so much better,” Wesley says.

There are competitors with more raw horsepower, BMW’s M-series cars among them, but torque--the pulling power of the engine, is the name of the game, and AMG models have most street-legal cars beat in that department.

“Eighty percent of the torque is available at 1,800 rpm, right off of idle,” says Rob Allen, AMG’s product manager in the U.S. “That means power on demand at any speed; any time you tap the accelerator, you spurt ahead.”

The cars sell because Mercedes, BMW and Audi, which produce performance-tuned versions of its cars called the S-series, have tapped into a growing pool of upscale drivers who are discovering the exhilaration of performance motoring.

Still, producing high-performance versions of their cars “is 99% bragging rights,” says Jeff Schuster, director of North American forecasting for J.D. Power & Associates in Detroit.

“But it does bring some aura to the brand and has a little bit of a halo effect,” he adds. “We’re seeing them gaining popularity.”

This year Mercedes is adding the six-cylinder C32 AMG and SLK32 AMG and the V-8 SLK55 AMG convertible to its U.S. lineup of performance-tuned models.

BMW has the M3, M5, M Coupe and M Roadster, and reportedly is developing an M-tuned version of its X5 SUV.

Audi’s performance line--the S4 sedan and wagon and the top-of-the-line S8 sedan--all were introduced around the beginning of this year. An S6 will come on the market later this year, but only in a wagon version.

Allen says the AMG’s division’s cars appeal to drivers who want raw power in an understated package. “On a sunny day, you might pull out your exotic car, but on a rainy Monday, an AMG is the car you’ll want to have because of the reliability and performance,” he says.

Buyers also get exclusivity, highly prized by those who know the brand. Each AMG power plant is assembled by a single craftsman who turns out two or three engines a day. Only 12,000 AMG vehicles were built last year.

AMG was founded in 1967 by Hans-Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher--the A and M--in the German town of Grossachbach, the G.

AMG has long worked on passenger vehicles and for decades also has worked on powertrain, suspension and braking systems for race cars, and that racing technology has migrated over to its consumer side.

Stuttgart-based DaimlerChrysler bought control of AMG in 1999--but the division takes pride in its autonomy.

“If you bury it in a big organization, it will be dead. You need to be a small, fast and entrepreneurial unit outside the big organization that drives the business,” says Wolfgang Bernhard, the Chrysler Group’s recently appointed chief operating officer. He was chief executive of AMG from 1998 until last November.

When Bernhard took over AMG, it produced only the C43 and E55 models for Mercedes-Benz in the U.S. He tripled the number of models sent AMG’s way and doubled production.

DaimlerChrysler sold 4,400 AMG cars in the U.S. last year, in hot pursuit of BMW’s high-performance brand. It hopes to reach 5,000 sales with AMG this year.

BMW introduced the M-Series to the U.S. in 1978 and last year sold 5,273 cars here. The positioning is somewhat different than AMG’s understated strategy, which includes marketing the cars as family vehicles. BMW blatantly appeals to driving nuts.

“A lot of true enthusiasts take their BMWs to racing tracks and driving schools,” says BMW spokesman Jonas Musson. “Our customers want more and more. The M division takes standard [BMW] series and builds what we like to think is the ultimate tuned sports sedan.”

Audi’s S-series is positioned as a more technology-oriented performance brand than the comparable Mercedes and BMW models. For example, all S-series Audis are all-wheel-drive cars.

But whether its an AMG-tuned Mercedes or a competing model, buyers pay handsomely for the privilege of driving one of these specially prepped vehicles.

In the case of AMG, prices range from an estimated $45,000 for the new C32, to be introduced in the U.S. this year, to $99,500 for the CL55 AMG, the performance coupe version of Mercedes’ flagship S-Class.

That’s a considerable premium, generally $10,000 to $20,000 over the cost of a stock version.

(By comparison, BMW’s new M5 has a list price of $70,045, about $16,000 more than the stock 5-Series sedan on which it is based. Buyers in Southern California have recently paid as much as $95,000 for a hard-to-find M5.)

But the extra cost is well worth it to car aficionados such as Larry Colvin, whose E55 AMG’s list price was $70,300, about $17,000 more than the stock E430.

“I like the looks and the handling,” Colvin says. “The AMG kit makes it look and feel high-performance.”

Colvin, a vice president at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, also has a Porsche 911 Turbo and BMW Z8 roadster alongside his bright-yellow E55. “I have an insatiable appetite for danger and adventure,” he says.

Terril Yue Jones is The Times’ Detroit bureau chief. He can be reached at t.jones@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Mercedes With Muscle

Mercedes-Benz is building up its elite image by expanding its exclusive, ultra-high-performance AMG division. Sporting more powerful, hand-built engines and extra-luxurious trim, AMG models such as the E55 described here--based on the E430 sedan--put out considerably more torque at lower engine rpm, providing impressive acceleration and passing capability. The E55 competes with cars such as the BMW M5 and the Audi S8.

Mercedes E430

Engine: 4.3-liter V8

Horsepower: 275

Torque 295 foot-pounds@3,000 rpm

0-60 mph: 6.4 seconds

Fuel economy: 22 mpg

Price: $53,200

Mercedes E55 AMG

Engine: 5.5-liter V8

Horsepower: 349

Torque: 391 foot-pounds@3,000 rmp

0-60 mph: 5.4 seconds