Co-Pilots' Notes #2:- '08 Maserati GranTurismo S

If only I had seen it coming. Had I kept my eye on the Radar I would have know that the Maserati would be present, and would have made arrangements to take it for an “evaluative appraisal”. As it was, I was only able to experience the machine from the passenger seat.

Time, then, for one of my ultra-cheaty, pinch-o’-salt Co-Pilots Notes instalments, and only the second Maserati to make it to the electronic pages of this here journal.

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Driven #46:- 2011 Mercedes-Benz CL500

 

The current generation Mercedes-Benz CL500 (CL550 in some markets) is absolutely glorious. It offers a lot of the exquisite comfort of an S-Class with a big injection of added indulgence. It's also almost preposterously quick, the 4.6 litre V8 thumping out 435 growly, thunderous horsepower, enough to hurl the vast machine to sixty in less than five seconds. To put this into perspective, that's only a second slower than the AMG CL65; and that has an extra 177 horses and costs a further fifty grand.

In all honesty, it was never really in doubt that the CL was a bit of a masterpiece. I mean, it would be absolutely criminal for the flagship Mercedes coupé to be anything less. But what really struck me about my time with the CL, for all its pleasure, for all that power, was how many systems it has to take your mind off driving it.

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Driven #44:- Mercedes-Benz CLS 63 AMG W218

I didn’t do more than 80 on my trip today. I didn’t explore any challenging back roads, didn’t test the standing start acceleration, didn’t even stuff it into a roundabout at Nurburgring speeds. I didn’t need to.

Not so long ago I drove a CLS 350 with the CGi Petrol engine, and spurted much prose in its general direction; claiming that it’s the best car to drive in the CLS Range. Well; it isn’t. Not by a long way. Today I had the enviable task of delivering a customer his brand new, 20 miles on the odometer, CLS 63 AMG.

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Driven #33:- Mercedes-Benz AMG SLS, Part Two

Fast forward a week. The Glastonbury Festival has been and gone, I have had this years fill of being at one with the trees and the animals, I've let the beat control my body and drank Whiskey from the Jar. It's back to work with a thud and, on my second day back, it was time to make a second 30 mile journey in the SLS.

For whatever reason, when I first drove the SLS I was interested, above all, in finding out what it meant. The ethos of the car, the reasoning behind it, the theory of where it fits into the great scheme of things, all somehow seemed more important than the actual machine itself. Today, for another 30 miles, I am free to concentrate on what it is, rather than why it is.

Whether it ends up as a footnote in history or an important step in automotive evolution, whether SLS's end up used every day or locked away in dusty vaults with Monets and Picassos. The car's worth as an artistic installation is in no doubt whatsoever, but it still remains to be seen whether it lives up to those attention grabbing looks. 

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Driven #33:- Mercedes-Benz AMG SLS, Part One

So, 49 years after the original Mercedes-Benz decided to recapture some of the drama of their original Gullwing, the 300SL.

Of course, the SL has moved on, or rather regressed a long way since the W198 of the ‘50s. At that point the fuel-injected, 150 mph beast was straight out of the annals of science fiction; a costly, hi-tech wonder far beyond the reach of mortal man. But soon, time and progress did their inevitable dance. Mercedes had to broaden the appeal of their flagship, so it got gradually bigger and more practical. And as it got bigger, it required more power. The engines offered on subsequent SLs rose in size through 350, 380, 420, 450, 500 and 560 in R107 shape, which didn’t really have any pretence of sportiness left at all, then up to 600 in the far more on-message R129 of the 'nineties.

Today, the R230 model is far closer to the sporting ideal of the W198, but the 300SL is right down at the bottom of the range, struggling to crack sixty in much less than eight seconds. So, rightly, the new Gullwing has a new name. They call it SLS, and it’s  Mercedes’ signature dish. This is everything the three-pointed-star knows about building a fast car.

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Driven #27:- Mercedes-Benz AMG E63

Sometimes my job is a very wonderful thing indeed. Aside from my more mundane duties, which I like to believe that I carry out uncomplainingly and with aplomb, sometimes I am placed in a special position of trust for which I am very grateful. To my employers; sincerely, I thank you.

For example, last weekend I had to drive over 500 miles into Scotland in a Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG before making the return journey in an equally interesting machine. And as I type these words I realise that I have absolutely no right whatsoever to whinge about work ever again.

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Driven #26:- Maserati Quattroporte

The Italians are fortunate with their language, it can transform phrases as mundane as “four doors” into words as charismatic as “Quattroporte”. And in the context of the name of Maserati’s big, posh saloon car offering, it'd a word that has a strange and unshakeable power over me.

For as long as I've been able to pronounce it, I have loved the Quattroporte. Every iteration, from the first, Citroën-related model in the ‘70s, through the Marcello Gandini-penned fourth generation (my favourite, for reasons unknown), to today’s very much more curvaceous car. It's been an ambition to get my hands on one, any, of these, and then on a beautiful sunny Tuesday this week, the keys finally landed on my desk.

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Driven #25:- C63 AMG vs C350CD

The Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG and its less expensive, less specialist little brother, the diesel fuelled C350 CDi Sport live at different reaches of the same price-list. They're salt and pepper, coffee and cream, scotch and soda. One loud and rambunctious, one coldly efficient. Or are they?

My major driving task for today saw me spending serious miles in both cars, looking for some kind of verdict, I didn't quite know what. After a day in two black leather saddles, what had I learnt?

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Driven #24:- Jaguar XFR

Jaguar are moving on. They have to. With new Indian owners and new money to invest, staying still was really not an option. The first sight of the new, brave Jaguar was the XF, replacement to the much underrated S-Type.

Bits of the S-Type still lurk under the skin, but all you can see and feel is all new. It has done very well since launch, winning plaudits and selling very well indeed. But the car you see here takes the fight to the very top. This is the XFR, Jaguars challenger for the super-saloon heavyweight belt.

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Driven #17:- Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG

If you're shy and retiring, and a your yearly bonus ain't what it once was, you might well eschew the baroque excess of a Maybach in the knowledge that a long wheelbase S-Class is more than enough luxury car for most people. The extra few inches in wheelbase over the regular car are found in greater rear legroom, all the better for allowing you to relax in the reclining, heated rear seats. Sunlight through the glazed rear roof panel sets the mood, an electric blind for that and all rear windows can be deployed should things get a little too heated. It may run short of the Maybachs electrochromatic roof, but is nicer than the pop-up glass panel in an old Fiesta.

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