14 Oct 04
Also, you can play games with this car in a way no other Merc allows. Like its less exalted brethren, the DTM Merc has a switchable stability control system. The only difference is that it will let you slide the tail of the car before it cuts in, and that's before you switch to its fun setting. Flick the switch and it will allow 30 degrees of yaw or, to put it another way, just about as far as you can go without crashing, before it leaps in to save you from yourself.
I'm lucky enough to have driven quite a few very fast cars but this one left me closer to dumbstruck than most. As a track tool, it's about as devastating as they come so I can only imagine what it would be like on the road. If I had one, I'd spend my life hoping for some poor soul in a 911 Turbo to come along, mistake it for a bodykitted CLK55 and reckon it was fair game. He'd probably need medical treatment afterwards.
But the real issue is this: in all ways that matter, this CLK is just as fast as an SLR, half the price and incomparably more exclusive. I also think it looks better. Believing myself to be an absurdly lucky individual, jealously is not something from which I normally suffer. But in the case of the 100 people who will take delivery of their CLK DTM AMGs in the course of the next year, I'm prepared to make an exception.
