Back in Black (Brabus)

I've been offline for a while, but now I am ready for the end of the world in a few months so I can carry on with life as normal.

The guys over at Brabus have a strange fetish with a) Mercedes-Bens and b) changing things.
Mercedes has an in-house tuning company, AMG, which takes care activities like turning an everyday C-class into a monster C63 AMG. Mercedes obviously couldn't be bothered.

How do these two (Brabus and AMG) correlate you might ask?
Brabus obviously thinks that AMG is quite silly and isn't trying hard enough to get ordinary Merc's to do extraordinary things.

Here's an example (in 2011):
Mercedes Takes a rather large slab of steel, hits it with a hammer a few times and pops out an S500, boasting a 5.5 Liter V8 with 382bhp.
When they're done with it it's AMG's turn. They drill a larger hole in the engine giving it a capacity of 6.2 Liters and manage to get 525 bhp to the crankshaft.
Brabus then laughs at AMG. They take the car, bling it up and make the engine angry so that it produces over 600bhp.

"Is that output sufficient, sir?" your butler might ask you if you're considering purchasing one. (If you don't have a butler don't be surprised if you can't afford one. Think Rolls-Royce prices)

Brabus also takes Mercedes' 6 Liter V12, gives it Between 700 and 800bhp and puts it in a C, E, CLS, CL, GLK, ML, GL or even a G-Class SUV. If you were one of the few to buy an SL65 Black series, they'll make that faster too.

Pointless?
Yes, but so cool.

A visual feast follows.

Brabus "Bullit" C-class

Brabus 800 "Widestar"

Brabus SL65 AMG Black Series

"New" C63 AMG?

After BMW launched the first E30 M3 in the 1986 and since then Audi and Mercedes have been playing catch-up in the "fastest small sedan" game. Audi finally caught up with the last RS4, offering a mad V8, a more manageable AWD system and an Avant RS4 to the range which meant that the RS4 would drop the E46 M3 at the lights with a washing machine in the boot.

Mercedes upped their game and shoved the 5.5 Liter supercharged lump from the E55 AMG into the C-class, but the car didn't have the dynamics of the RS4 and the M3. BMW was next in line and rocked the scene with the E92 M3 Coupe. The high revving V8 and amazing dynamics meant it was faster around the track than the Audi and it reclaimed the crown. 

It wasn't long before Mercedes raised the bar with their C63 AMG. The ludicrous 6.2 AMG V8 made 450bhp and the guys at AMG upped the chassis and suspension so that it was basically as fast as the current M3. 

So where am I going with this history lecture? 

Well, history would suggest that it's Audi's turn for the next best car, but Mercedes has revealed their "New" C63. So what's the news? A V12? 500bhp? A car which can do backflips? Not quite. Same engine, same chassis, just a new nose job and different axles with a few new electronic aids from its big brothers.

I think Mercedes is trying to sell as many C63's as it can before Audi releases its RS4, which they will when they stop playing with the R8.

So if you're burning to buy the new C63, well don't. At least not until Audi plays it's next card which, if the RS5 is anything to go on, will be epic.

Here's the "New" C63 after visiting the plastics division of Mercedes' design studio.