The R63 AMG Is Ugly, But It Might Also Be the Best Bang for the Buck
Oh, the R-class, how we do not miss thee. The awkwardly-executed soup of wagon, SUV, and minivan ingredients just never caught on. It lasted just five years in the States, from 2005-2010. Toward the middle of that production run, Affalterbach made the most absurd announcement, when in 2006 at the North American International Auto Show, AMG announced it was planning to stuff the M156 V8 engine into the R-class.
It flopped.
The problem is, the R-Class wasn’t meant to be a performance vehicle. Inside, you get the feeling it was meant to blast Kidz Bop 12 and be resistant to children who’d throw their breakfast cereal at each other between the 2nd and 3rd row seats. An uninspiring interior sat atop an even more uninspiring chassis. Putting 507 horsepower in this car simply was absurd, and ultimately, fewer than 200 people put their own hard-earned money down to buy one.
But here’s where I shift my opinion a little bit. I now think the R63 is amazing for one reason, and only one reason: in terms of a used car, it’s astonishingly cheap. As of writing this, bids with 5 days to go on Bring A Trailer are only at the $15,000 mark for this 78,000-mile example. That’s a very small price to pay for what is arguably one of the best modern V8s in existence.
12/12/2016 UPDATE: Click that Bring a Trailer link above. You won’t believe what this thing sold for. On second thought, maybe you’d better not click it because the 51,000-volt shock may kill you.
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>
Via [Bring A Trailer]
