The Mercedes Hot Hatch: Fantasy Meets Reality

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

This is the B55, a silly one-off project by workers at Mercedes’ Rastatt plant that involved shoving an old “55” AMG engine into a new B-Class, running a driveshaft through the “sandwich floor” and hooking it up to an old E-Class wagon rear axle. The result: 383 HP, a 0-60 time in the 5 second range, and what Autocar terms “surprisingly mature dynamic properties.” Possibly even more surprisingly, the whole project was done without a lick of help from the nutters at AMG, and required no frame modifications. Best of all is how comfortingly old-school the project is: the days of turning an FWD compact car into a V8 RWD beast are rapidly drawing to a close. Need proof? For the next-generation of A/B-Class, AMG is going in a very different direction, creating an “A25 AMG” which will use a two liter turbocharged four-banger, putting around 300 HP through a dual-clutch transmission and Haldex AWD. This “STI by AMG” will doubtless be infinitely more practical, efficient and useable than the B55’s old-school V8/RWD setup… but more than a few gearheads will be sad to see these kinds of unhinged anachronisms ride off into the sunset.


Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Campisi Campisi on Dec 19, 2010

    Of course they're moving to a turbo four; how else will they leverage the advertisement value and trickle-down tech to come from the switch to four-cylinders in Formula One?

  • Alwaysinthecar Alwaysinthecar on Dec 20, 2010

    This is NOT an AMG motor, it's a MB 5.5 liter standard motor. This has nothing to do with anything AMG. Pure speculation on the part of the author. The story is in the Euro media and is much more accurate than this TTAC "news" story.

  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
  • EBFlex The best gift would have been a huge bonfire of all the fak mustangs in inventory and shutting down the factory that makes them.Heck, nobody would even have to risk life and limb starting the fire, just park em close together and wait for the super environmentally friendly EV fire to commence.
  • Varezhka Of all the countries to complain about WTO rules violation, especially that related to battery business…
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