A few years ago, I found myself comfortably ensconced in the back seat of a German taxicab. I was luxuriating in what I thought was leather (it was MB Tex, the convincing faux hide) when the driver cranked-up the engine. Smoke and stench poured from the Mercedes’ diesel engine. I scoffed– until the driver blew straight through 180kph on the autobahn to Munich. Even from the passenger seat, the torque was more intoxicating than the exhaust wafting in through the window. I was hooked.

OK, I admit it: I’ve consumed way too much AMG Kool Aid. I own multiple sets of the Mercedes tuner’s black license plate frames and key rings, an AMG logo-shirt, a cashmere V-neck sweater, half a dozen hats, a pair of driving shoes, a winter coat and a limited edition AMG watch. I would have more of their stuff, but recently I was introduced to a gentleman from Italy who spied the AMG logo on the back of my car and pronounced it, “Eye-Em-Gay,” and that sort of cooled me off. And then I drove the E63 AMG.

I recently completed a Munich to Paris road trip in a BMW 335. When I returned to the US, I was retrospectively struck by the lack of high profile vehicles (pickup and SUV’s, not celebrity Ferraris or Leclerc battle tanks) on French and German roads. I suppose when gas costs nearly seven bucks a gallon, fuel efficiency is all. Personally, I don’t care for SUV’s; the few I have owned have taught me that being tall and overweight is no more fun for a vehicle than it is for a former supermodel. So when my Mercedes dealer suggested I have a look at the new ML63, I scoffed. And then went along for the ride.

During my soujourn on the other side of the pond, I was delighted to score an early drive in the new CL550. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was somewhat blunted by the French Mercedes salesman’s incessant questioning. He kept interrupting my concentration to ask me how to adjust his seat massage system. Then, thanks to his oafish fiddling with the car's COMAND navigation system, I was distracted by a computerized frenchwoman ordering me to make a U-turn s’il possible. I contemplated pulling over sur le grand-rue to garrote both of my companions, but I couldn’t find a Parisian parking space of sufficient enormity to berth the German dreadnought. Tant pis pour moi.

Albert Einstein posited that energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared. The Mercedes Benz CL65 AMG provides a new definition: energy equals horsepower at the speed of light for squares. Relativity speaking, the big Merc’s top end is significantly less than the cosmic speed limit of 670,616,629.384 mph. Subjectively, that number feels about right. In fact, the CL 65 is Die Grosse Bang on wheels, an automotive event that warps the time space continuum to the point where I swear I wrote this review tomorrow.

You may have noticed this website tends to celebrate performance automobiles. While this predilection for dynamic distraction places us within the media mainstream, it doesn’t square with urban car culture. I'm sure you know that car owners who inflict double-dubs on their whips happily sacrifice ride and handling on the altar of, gulp, style. Even so, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve seen the light. Thanks to the Mercedes SL550, I now know middle aged white people can stunt and floss with the best (worst?) of them.

The Mercedes CLK 63 AMG Cabriolet is like a woman with large, perfectly shaped breasts. No matter how much you try to talk about her other qualities, your attention keeps returning to one thing: the engine’s enormous peak output. The CLK holsters AMG’s first purpose-built powerplant, a normally aspirated mill good for 475 horsepower (507 in its less restricted sibilings). As usual, it’s assembled in Affalterbach by one satanic mechanic, whose name is stamped on a plate affixed to the engine block. In another nod to heritage, the “63” represents the engine’s displacement rounded up from 6.2-liters; homage to the legendary 300 SEL 6.3 produced by Mercedes-Benz from 1968-1972. That’s some heavy heritage.

Small changes can have a major impact. Remember Jennifer Grey, the female lead in the film “Dirty Dancing?” Her fine proboscis lent her an air of distinction. Then she had reductive rhinoplasty and dropped out of sight. Although Audi's Auto Union-inspired snout seems to be going for the reverse effect, Mercedes is wise to the law of incremental effect. In the case of the CLS550, small changes have transformed a wannabe into a gotta have.

The Mercedes E550 is like one of those gently aging character actors that everyone recognizes but no one can name.  I guess the fact that Mercedes put over a million of E-Class sedans on the road in the past four years may have a little something to do with it.  Either that or the brand’s reacting to Bimmer’s Bangling and their own S-Class blingery by maintaining the E’s arch conservatism.  While understandable, I’m not so sure that the mid-sized Merc's generic good looks and mild-mannered charisma are such a good thing…

Twenty years ago, if one were to trying to describe the differences in the various models from Mercedes-Benz, it would be something along the lines of “just like the big, boring sedan, only bigger / smaller.” No longer. The Japanese, once viewed as nothing more than a bunch of Pacific-rim wet smack upstarts who would NEVER produce a viable competitor to the established German marques, have changed the rules of the game. Not only do the Asian prestige brands have a stranglehold on quality, but some of them are starting to actually look pretty, too. Uh oh. Seems time to swim upstream, mein freund.

The late 20th century's over, thankfully. So there's no longer any need for the well-heeled or arriviste consumers to apologize for– or even make motions to conceal– conspicuous consumption. Why speak softly and carry a big stick when you can afford a bullhorn and bazooka? To that end, Mercedes' S-Class is finally showing signs of emerging from its identity crisis. The biggest, most expensive car in the lineup OUGHT to provoke an almost apoplectic concupiscence, right? It should be the knockout; the brick house.
Ostensibly then, the big S is the model driving the styling direction of the company– though Audi never seemed to get on board with that theory, and Bavarian Motor Works is busy back-pedaling. But if the S550 is the thrust, then I'm afraid it bodes ill for the rest of the range. In a diametric flip-flop worthy of the Bush administration's foreign policy, Mercedes has gone from being a company that couldn't get the front-end right to one that botches the tail.

The S550’s nose is merely standard-issue Mercedes boilerplate, hobbled somewhat with the need for a more upright grille area to comply with European pedestrian crash safety standards. Like any efficient courtesan, however, the front-end styling saves all the excitement for below the belt, where an interesting grouping of shapes is at play. (Dare I say racy?) I enjoy the way the styling folks at Mercedes make a single molded plastic unit look as though it’s composed of impossibly tight-fitting separate bits; it’s perceived quality– perhaps just shy of fictive– but nice.

No doubt about it, this is a big car. By all indications, there was a stalemate as to whether or not to emphasize that fact from the side. Gone are the days of the legendary Mercedes flying phallus wedge, in favor of something a little more nympholeptic. Hey, I’m all for getting in touch with the feminine side, but then why the positively congested wheel arches? That conceit didn’t even work for the hysterically hyper-styled ML55 and that was a truck, guys! I half expect the S550 to suppurate brake fluid out all four corners onto my Bruno Maglis. Elevate it and give it a cold compress, please.

And while you’re at it, save some of that avant-garde for the side mirrors. Mercedes, the company that integrated turn-signals into the mirror housings (most visibly, at least) has moved on. That’s okay… The Volkswagen group is more than happy to pay attention to detail opportunities like these. Oh dear, oh dear. Now the rear.

Across the board, this used to be Mercedes’ strong suit. No matter how insouciant the stylists were with the front, you could always count on there being a tight little hiney. Like the view of the people on the beach at St. Tropez, the rear 3/4 was usually the view of preference. At best, the S550’s taillight treatment is breathtakingly boring and weak; at worst, it’s a shameless attempt to forge a link to Mercedes’ own Maybach. Granted, the S500 ain’t cheap, but precious few will confuse the money-for-money’s-sake empyrean Maybach with something from the three pointed star, taillights be damned.

Inside the S550, corporate jet is the current styling dictum, what with all the scalloped seatbacks and offset lighting. Air travel always conjured-up impressions of leg cramps and sinus infections to me, but I fly coach. Not so the ones buttering the S550’s bread, and it shows with impressive materials, most of which take great pains to project quality. Apart from the somewhat overwrought sweeping dashboard shape (an unfortunate Mercedes trend, likely to continue), the sum of the parts works toward a pretty convincing whole. And thank the maker that the S550’s interior stylists have rediscovered chrome switchgear, because Mercedes’ suppliers can’t seem to wrap their minds around the concept of soft-touch, good looking plastic. My advice? Stick with what you know…

So for those with the 8-digit income (7-digit is SO three-scandals-ago) who wish to hurtle along in apollonian splendor, Mercedes presents the thoroughly competent, if not particularly cohesive, S550. Nobody emerges from an identity crisis fully intact, but then of course we won’t know for sure until the swelling goes down.

As I fired up the GL450, I noticed that the big Merc's trip computer had begun calculating my mpg. I watched in startled fascination as the idling SUV's fuel economy began to drop from the previous night's calculation. Although Mercedes deserves props (or brickbats) for releasing such a glorious gas hog at the tail end of America's SUV craze, the dropping digits left me wondering how the GL450 could possibly rationalize this lampshade-on-the-head consumptive behavior. Even if the target market's interest in fuel economy is more political than wallet-driven, the GL still needs to stump-up some serious self-justification.

Ever have an extremely likeable acquaintance who drives you nuts with their constant need to flaunt their knowledge of arcane or technical matters? That's the new Mercedes S550. In many ways, on many levels, the big Merc is the world's best sedan: a sublime expression of German automotive engineering excellence. And then the luxobarge starts showing off, convinced that it's smarter than you are when it comes to comfort, information, communication and yes, driving. At that point, a fully-equipped S550 could well be world's most annoying automobile.

Again, let's get this straight: the Mercedes S550 is the best riding and handling four-door sedan money can buy. At the front: a four-link air suspension with antilift control, gas shock absorbers, stabilizer and anti-dive system. At the rear: multilink independent air suspension and antisquat system. On the road: the German luxobarge smothers road imperfections with extreme prejudice, out-Jaguaring Jaguar by a wide margin. Even better, hurling Mercedes' 4376-pound behemoth into a corner is like riding a Maglev train; the S550 leans slightly and then glides through all but the tightest turns. The car's dynamics are virtually indefatigable.

The Upper Middle Fork road into Washington State’s Snoqualmie National Forest is the kind of road a SUV buyer sees all the time– in glossy ads. It’s a roller-coaster ride of immense potholes, fist-sized rocks and ankle-deep snow that carves through an ancient, awe-inspiring landscape. As such, it’s the perfect testing ground for the Mercedes-Benz ML500: a vehicle appealing to well-heeled suburbanites who want to know they could drive their $63k SUV down treacherous roads like this, at speed, even though they never will.

Getting old is not for sissies. Aside from a general degradation in motor skills, sensory perception, memory and earnings, the 401K set is prone to health complaints that are both fantastically expensive and endlessly annoying. Fortunately, there are compensations: grandchildren (kids free from a no-deposit, no-return policy) and the Mercedes Benz E350 4Matic. I'm not saying the E350 was specifically designed to salve the fading sensibilities of the blue rinse brigade, but any car this numb, beige and expensive is clearly aimed at Baby Boomers who are wealthy as Hell and aren't going to take it anymore. Unless you ask nicely.

The E350 is a polite request on wheels. While Mercedes' product developers have been busy performing bizarre genetic experiments in pursuit of The Next Big Thing– carbon fiber supercars, mutant crossovers, four-door chop tops, re-imagined Nazi staff cars– their mid-sized model remains reassuringly bland– I mean, conservative. On the downside, the E still suffers from the swoopy dorkiness of its oval headlights, which make the grill look small, which denies the E350 get-out-my-way gravitas. And it continues to share far too many family traits with the lower-priced C-Class to please the legions of status conscious Mercedes buyers.

The Mercedes-Benz R500 has three rows of seats, so it can’t be a sedan. It’s too tall for a station wagon, too low for a minivan and lacks sufficient ground clearance for an SUV. If you define a “crossover” as an automobile that doesn’t fit into any known genre, then the R500’s got it nailed. For its part, Mercedes calls the R-Class a “grand sports tourer”. A rose by any other name… and the question remains. Is the R-Class a genuine game changer or simply a clever attempt to get new money for old rope?

A close examination of the R500’s content reveals some decidedly familiar kit. The big Merc shares its platform, manufacturing facility and full-time four-wheel-drive system with the latest generation M-Class SUV. The R500’s V8, a Mercedes staple, is married to Stuttgart’s supernaturally-smooth seven-speed automatic transmission. Naturally, the R-Class inherits every safety acronym in Stuttgart’s playbook: ABS, ASR, ESP, BA and, no doubt, an MFA from USC.

Stylistically, the R-Class borrows heavily from the CLS chop-top . The R500’s headlights, grille and hood wedge down into a centerline crease, while the swoopy side windows create a surfer’s perfect curl. The rear declares its independence; the side contours curve into bulbous shapes in the lift gate, with keyhole-lensed taillights. It's a radical statement, but anything less would have tagged the R500 as a minivan wannabe.

The original press reports on the new Mercedes M-Class SUV claimed it had car-like handling. It didn’t. The same will be said about the R-Class twin-under-the-skin. It doesn’t. The R500’s driver’s seat is well forward in the wheelbase and the H-point (the driver’s hip location inside the chassis) is a lot higher than a standard sedan’s. The combination creates excellent visibility, but delivers fundamentally different balance reference points than a car. In other words, steering a sailboat from halfway up the mast doesn’t feel the same as when you’re standing on the deck.

Our test R500 came equipped with optional Airmatic adaptive damping. The system adjusts the R500’s shock absorber settings every .05 seconds. It automatically firms-up in the corners, softens for rough roads and drops the car’s chassis (at 77mph) for improved handling, stability and reduced drag. There’s also a switch to increase the vehicle’s ground clearance by roughly three inches for deep snow or traversing that two-track leading to your cabin in the Adirondacks.

When fully exercised, the R500’s V8 emits a healthy snarl. The engine stumps-up enough oomph to hustle the nearly two-and-a-half ton crossover from zero to sixty in an entirely respectable 6.5 seconds. Yes, there is that. Even with all-wheel drive constantly searching for maximum traction, the R500 is simply too bulky to earn the right to place “sport” and “R500” in the same brochure .

In more sedate situations, the R500 offers all the practicality of a minivan— without the flexibility of a high roof or room for seven. On the positive side, three kids, one friend and a large Coleman cooler is quite enough for one outing, thank you very much. And the R’s rear seats fold en masse for a fully flat cargo area, or individually, for those rare occasions when you’re carrying four people and a grandfather clock.

Predictably, the R-Class’ option list is almost as long as the credit application. The optional Rear Seat Entertainment System allows middle passengers individual control of the audio and video delights, but denies the same power to passengers vegging in the way back. The R500's optional panoramic sunroof package includes a normal sunroof and a deeply tinted roof above the second and third row seats. It’s excellent for curing D-pillar claustrophobia, as well as a quick, neck straining tour of the Manhattan skyline.

Women who wish to watch from the back of the bus will not be well pleased with R-Class ingress. There’s no way to enter the rear seats without mooning the assembled multitudes. Exit is no more graceful. J-Lo may be expert at backing out of marriages, but don’t look for her to reverse engineer herself from the rear seat of an R-Class anytime soon. And don’t look if she does.

Personal indignity aside, the R500 has a lot to recommend it. It’s roomier than a sedan and almost as practical as an SUV (and a lot less thirsty). The R is also sleeker than any current minivan, handles better and leaves mom’s people carrier in the dust. In sum, Stuttgart (via Alabama) has assembled something unique from their well-established box of tricks. Whether or not the R500 is worth the usual three-pointed premium depends as much on customers’ aversion to other genres as their attraction to Mercedes’ brave new wheels.

[For more of John Matras' reviews, please visit www.carbuzzard.com ]