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Anonymous Rex

There is something hugely, intensely satisfying about coming up behind a police motorbike at 160mph and forcing him out of the way with a sheer wall of noise. Knowing I wouldn’t spend the next few days sharing intimate moments with a serial killer named Bubba made it all the sweeter.

Thank the Heavens for derestricted German Autobahns, a passenger reassuring me that it was perfectly legal and a super saloon like the Carlsson CK55, an even more muscular version of the preposterously powerful CLS 55 AMG.

Stefan Mueller, our guide for the day, excitedly said: “It sounds like a T-Rex!” It’s hard to think of a better analogy. The noise emanating from under the hood is saturated in prehistoric menace and this car has all the same brute force. It’s a little more high-tech than the scaly monster, of course, but it has about the same levels of finesse.

With a 470bhp engine to start with, Carlsson was always going to produce a monster and the engine is basically the same powerplant as the 564bhp E55 AMG conversion I was lucky enough to test on track on the last visit to the German powerhouse.

Rolf Hartge and his devoted followers have rounded the power down to 560bhp, achieved with an increased compression ratio, reprogrammed ECU and, crucially, a V-Max delimiter. This car is just stretching its legs at the old car’s artificially induced 155mph top end and will now scorch all the way to 200mph without trouble, barging cops out the way at every opportunity.

As we’d expect from Mercedes it does so in armchair comfort, too, wafting along at unreasonable speeds in armchair luxury, but the burbling mechanised roar erupting from all four stainless steel exhaust pipes rules out the word refined. Refinery yes, refined no.

The engine note that suggests it doesn’t just want to pass the car in front, it wants to fire them off the road into a nice big tree. It’s a bullying brute of a motor that will take this 4200lb beast to 60mph in 4.5 seconds, provided the electronics are on.

Tramp the gas from a standstill and the car will barely move, it will simply envelop everything nearby, including choking photographers, in a big cloud of white tyre smoke. Mercedes electronics might be impossible to totally disarm, but they can be overpowered.

It will do the same thing if you let loose anywhere under 100mph and the pure excess of power is verging on the ridiculous. Any car with 597 lb/ft of torque should come with a health warning, especially in combination with AMG’s screw-type supercharger that Carlsson thinks is a little savage. They have developed a Wankel-licenced number that they think smooths out the savage spike in power.

This car picks up speed like Blue Whales pick up plankton, it just hoovers up the road in front. The only true indication of speed is the deep rumble increasing to a near frightening tone, like thunder getting really close. That and Stefan’s leg starting to tense against the side of the car as we headed towards sharper bends, effectively announcing sensible braking points, of course.

While it’s lightning fast, then, it remains first and foremost a Mercedes in that it’s a heavy car and it must be comfortable. Carlsson’s C-Tronic lowering system works its magic here, dropping the car’s air suspension by 30mm. On cut up roads, though, it will sense that Masters’s rear end is feeling the road noise and obediently lift to a comfort setting. Carlsson has done a good job of trimming the fat, but this isn’t a slinky sportscar, it’s a big Autobahn crushing status symbol with more torque than a battleship. It doesn’t need to be fast through bends, it’ll get them on the first straight.

As for the cosmetics, our car came decked out with an interior that makes P Diddy’s wardrobe look a little drab, but it looks better than it sounds. Quilted leather and Alcantara seats, a Carlsson sports steering wheel and a high gloss varnish liberally spread around the standard trim actually looks cool in the flesh although I admit that it sounds only marginally more elegant than a rhino on ice skates.

The speedo is by far the sexiest thing in the cabin, though, as it now reads 360kph (225mph), which suggests the quoted top end speed might even be a little conservative.

Outside, it’s a little more muted. Rolf Hartge loves insanely fast cars and opulent interiors, but he clearly doesn’t approve of big wings and other headache inducing cosmetics on the outside.

A subtle rear wing adjustment and front lip spoiler that should serve a purpose and prevent front-end lift at speed are the only real annotation on offer, except for the mighty 20” Ultra Light forged wheels that turn into mirrors at speed, and that medallion of a logo on the front end that the car could do without, of course.

Wheels are a law unto themselves, though, and a big tuner like Carlsson would need their collective heads examined if they didn’t seek to exploit the market for tarted up alloys that goes well beyond customers of the latest AMG.

The whole kit costs about €28,000 on top of the standard car, so it’s a sizeable wedge of cash, but anyone who can afford to buy and run an AMG Merc of this stature in the first place is unlikely to be frightened off by such things. And Carlsson’s reputation as a purveyor of fine automobiles with subtle looks means his customers tend to be the more mature and well-heeled members of society.

For them there lies a long, winding and open tour down the Autobahn, imperiously punching police bikes out the way. If I have to be an old dinosaur one day, this is the kind of predator I want to be driving.

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