The legendary Nurburgring is the proving ground to test automotive prowess. The famed track’s Nordschleife Circuit is 12.9 miles of twists, turns, straightaways to go along with a 1,000-foot change in elevation from high point to low. It is the track to measure an automobile against the best that have gone before it.
The 2018 Mercedes-AMG E63 S 4MATIC+ Estate took on the track known the “Green Hell” and came out with the title of fasted estate car ever. In Europe, “Estate” is a fancy way of saying station wagon and I must admit it sounds a whole lot cooler. The wagon with 612 horsepower to go along with over 64 cubic feet of cargo space blazed the world’s most challenging race course in 7:45.19.
To give you some perspective on just how fast that is, the Mercedes SL65 AMG Black Series ran a 7:51 in 2009 while the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 ran a 7:47 in 2006. A few years later, the performance which was once reserved for top-of-the-line sports cars is now available in a station wagon you can load up with 2x4s at Home Depot.
The test was conducted by German car magazine Sport Auto and showed off the strengths of the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8. The 9-speed automatic all-wheel-drive wagon is hurled from zero to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. You’ve got to give the German’s credit but they do have some home-court advantage here. Every AMG model Mercedes builds is developed on the Nurburgring and spends a lot of time testing on the track ahead of its final production model.
Known stateside as the AMG E 63 S Wagon, the car can be had for $106,950 base MSRP. Even with all that power and performance Mercedes still claims 22 miles per gallon on the highway and 16 mpg in the city. It’s good to know you have over 600 hp just in case you have to race to the grocery store before closing time.