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2015 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG Coupe

For Mercedes-Benz to truly demonstrate the capabilities and sensations of the S65 AMG Coupe, it needs to commission the building of a highway halfway to the moon. That's right, a ribbon of Autobahn roughly 120,000 miles long, with 50,000 miles of twisties and sweepers. Let's even add some loop-de-loops though the ionosphere, since, you know, we're going all the way with this. We've been following the headlines about progress on a new lunar lander and the SpaceX Mars Colonial Transporter, but we recently discovered that we've already got both of them in the S65 AMG Coupe. This isn't a car, it's a rocket ship. And it's not perfect, but it is spectacular. Starting with the way it looks. When Mercedes unveiled the concept at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show, I wasn't impressed. In fact, I told the Mercedes PR person, "It's fine, but the rear end doesn't do anything for me." And today? I'll have the crow, please, with lots of ketchup. When the test car you see here arrived, my loins tumbled and my knees developed a slight tremble. By the following week I was posing thought experiments like, "What's hotter: me in this car, or nothing else ever?" It's big – just eight inches shorter than the S-Class sedan and only an inch narrower. It's an inch longer than the Porsche Panamera and four inches wider, but just 0.3-inches taller than that slinking sport sedan. Its size and segment seem to have freed the designers' pens, and we think it's the best and most unapologetic expression of the brand's current language. We'd normally vote "nay" to a face full of chrome, but the coupe has the width to spread the polished elements around, and the top-to-bottom three-dimensionality indeed earns the adjective "jewel-like." A button on the center console lifts the entire car to protect those jewels when needed. The profile doesn't give up on the rising, sculpted wedge we've known for years – the one we used to love on the SL-Class. And again, the 16.6-foot expanse of sheet metal gives those opposing swage lines an unhurried opportunity to carve the body. The sidelong swell is enhanced by the carbon-fiber rocker panel laid into the concavity along the bottom, as well as those hips over the rear wheels. Speaking of which, the polished, 20-inch forged rollers are spot on. The bluff backside is sculpted just enough to keep it interesting, from the decklid spoiler to the horizontals across the bumper and carbon diffuser. Mostly, though, it seems to say to anyone behind, "Please.

Race Recap: Abu Dhabi GP is reversals, luck, leanness and last dances

We weren't sure if Alter Ego Nico Rosberg, the one who flew into Brazil and showed Mercedes AMG Petronas teammate Lewis Hamilton that he knew also knew how to grab an entire race weekend by the scruff of the neck, arrived in Abu Dhabi. In both Friday practice sessions Hamilton showed Rosberg the way. Then on Saturday, Alter Ego Rosberg took over, taking the last Free Practice session and then pole position by a whopping four-tenths of a second over Hamilton. Thanks to the gimmicky and soon-to-be-obliterated spectre of double points, if Rosberg won the race and Hamilton finished lower than second, the World Championship would remain in German hands. Behind Hamilton came the Williams duo, again, with Valtteri Bottas ahead of Felipe Massa. Daniil Kvyat did swell to put his Toro Rosso in fifth, Jenson Button was just as swell getting his McLaren into sixth. Kimi Raikkonen outqualified his Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso for the third time this year, the pair taking seventh and eighth on the grid. Kevin Magnussen lined the second McLaren up in ninth, Jean-Eric Vergne making the top ten for Toro Rosso in his last race for the team. To be clear, that was the final grid for race: Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel had both qualified in the top ten but were sent to the back of the grid when their Infiniti Red Bull Racing front wings were deemed illegal. They'd start from the pit lane, which was still ahead of Romain Grosjean in the Lotus, who took so many penalties for new engine components that he started the race in Turkey. At lights-out on Sunday, well, it was pretty much lights out. That's when Hamilton got the start of the year, bolting off the line so quickly it didn't take him 100 meters to get in front of Rosberg. The Brit took Turn 1 in the lead, then laid more than a second into the German on the first lap. Rosberg kept close, about 2.5 seconds back, but it was Hamilton's race to lose and everyone knew it; barring a reliability issue or the kind of driving mistake Hamilton hasn't made all year, Britain would have its fourth double world champion. Rosberg was left asking his engineer what kind of strategy they might use to claim first place. That reliability issue did come, but it struck Rosberg on Lap 26 when his entire Energy Recovery System failed, robbing him of 160 horsepower and taxing his brakes.

Mercedes may not be done with R-Class after all

The idea of blending a three-row SUV and a minivan into a luxury model like the Mercedes-Benz R-Class still seems wonderfully absurd, particularly when you consider that there was an AMG version of that German people-mover. Apparently, though, one of the brand's execs doesn't believe the concept behind the R-Class is all that bizarre. In fact, he thinks it could be time to try again. Wolf-Dieter Kurz, Mercedes' vice president in charge of SUVs and sports cars, believes that crossovers could be a major driver of product variants in the future due to their popularity. There are a lot of design possibilities to explore in the segment, in his opinion. "There was already one that we had in the portfolio – maybe we were too early – which was the R-Class, which we are still selling in China. It's doing good, with 12,000 to 14,000 units per year," Kurz said during the launch of the GLE and GLE Coupe, according to CarAdvice. Under a recent deal, the quirky model is made by AM General and exported out of the US. Kurz even suggested the exact niche that the new model might fill. "So let's say these more, let's say, on-road based but still very roomy, but not station wagon, is definitely an interesting segment also in the future," he said, according to CarAdvice. That almost sounds like a blend of wagon and SUV in a move not too dissimilar from the current Subaru Outback or the old R-Class. One hurdle for any future model reviving the concept of the R-Class is that the company is already bursting with CUVs. Every size is practically already filled with the GLA, GLC, GLE, and forthcoming GLS, plus Coupe variants for some of them.