Matt Farah Drives a 2003 Mercedes E55 AMG with Hand Controls
The Smoking Tire drives a stock E55 AMG that is anything but your run-of-the-mill Merc.
It’s no surprise that Matt Farah gets drive a lot of cool and interesting cars with the success of The Smoking Tire’s “One Take” series. From tricked out Hondas to Ferrari supercars, there’s no end in sight to what kind of cars will show up. On this segment, Farah drives his very first ever E55 AMG on video and it also is equipped with hand controls because owner Andria is paraplegic.
Though it may not have been his first time driving a car with hand controls, it’s the first one with the conventional setting (pull to go and push to stop). The first car he drove with hand controls on video was a Subaru Forester XT with the opposite setting (push to go and pull to stop).
Getting back to the car at hand, Andria mentions that her 2003 E55 AMG is bone stock with about 147,000 miles or so on the odometer. Prior to this particular model, she previously owned two first generations (W210) which came with naturally aspirated 5.4L V8s. Before the loss of the use of her legs, Andria owned other German saloons such as an E36 M3 and even an Audi RS6 both of which had manual gearboxes.
As Farah drove along the winding road, he slowly got used to the hand controls and became more and more comfortable. He mentions that it turned what may have been just a regular cruise in an automatic Mercedes into a fun and educational experience. All in all, it’s great to see a true car enthusiast continue to enjoy her passion without having her disability stop her.
What do you guys think about this latest “One Take” episode? Let us know on the forum!
