Mercedes tests upcoming S65 AMG at the Ring
Tue, 20 Aug 2013
A two-and-a-half-ton luxury sedan wouldn't exactly be our first choice for a romp around the Nürburgring. But then Mercedes-AMG has a way of exceeding expectations. To get the new S-Class to run to sixty in 3.9 seconds, Benz's performance studio fitted the S63 with a 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8 that sends 577 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque to all four wheels. But the boys in Affalterbach aren't done just yet. Before the fat lady that is the S-Class sings its swan song, AMG will follow up with the yet more powerful S65.
Expected to debut towards the end of the year in LA, the new S65 AMG is expected to pack even more muscle than the outgoing model's already-astonishing 621 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque, channeled from its 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12 to all four wheels instead of its predecessor's two. Considering that the S63 dropped half a second off its 0-60 time from one generation to the next, we could be looking at a run as quick as 3.6 seconds for the new S65. And as you can see from this spy video shot at the Nürburgring, for all its heft, the new king of the performance sedans will do more than just go in a straight line.
By Noah Joseph