FAST AND FUTURIOUS

The new EQE 53 4MATIC+ is the first fully electric and future-ready super saloon from Mercedes' high-performance AMG division. Prestige takes it for a drive.

-  JON WALL

When in the late 1960s a pair of former Mercedes-Benz engineers named Hans Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher set up AMG, an independent engine-tuning operation, it was initially with the aim of making the products of their erstwhile employer more competitive in the worlds of motor racing and rallying. Later, like so many other tuning businesses, they also began modifying the company's road cars, slotting in bigger and more powerful engines, adjusting chassis, suspension and braking systems to handle the increased outputs and speeds, and possibly with the occasional nod and wink of encouragement from Mercedes itself-turning the conservative conveyances of Germany's post-war bourgeoisie into machines that were exhilaratingly raw and raucous.

Evidently, the halo appeal resulting from AMG's activities wasn't lost on the powers that be at Daimler-Benz. By the early '90s, the board in Stuttgart had agreed to a formal cooperation between the companies, which soon led to the acquisition of a controlling interest and ultimately, in 2005, a full takeover by the bigger of the two. Mercifully for lovers of fast cars, however, that final step in the relationship hardly changed the nature of the automobiles on which the high-performance operation worked its magic. In fact, Mercedes' AMG-badged variants remained as gloriously characterful and rowdy as ever, with big, rumbling multi-cylinder engines that propelled them to enormous speeds, and exhaust systems that would crackle, pop and, now and again, even spit out a lick of flame - mighty machines such as the CLK 63, the gullwing SLS coupe, various C 63s, the supercar-fast E 63 S saloon and the AMG GT R coupe (the latter especially in its unmistakable Green Hell Magno paint job).