PC Valkyrie

Yes, there are car nuts in this world who have a LOT of money and can own multiple expensive vehicles and/or change vehicles almost at will if they don't like something or want something else. Good for them that they can afford to change cars like they change underwear.

This E55 vs E63 debate is a HUGE issue among the E55 owners. Many of them have always been very proud of the fact that their car is a MONSTER in terms of straight line acceleration with HUGE torque from that supercharged 5.4L V8. It was easy to mod the supercharged E55 engine to get significant gains for relatively little cost. With the introduction of the natrually aspirated E63, which has LESS torque, the debate opens as to whether this new model is actually faster in everday driving than the E55. As expected, some E55 owners have already concluded (based on no data) that their beloved E55 will be faster down low in the rpm range. On mbworld.org, they are anxiously awaiting real world drag strip times for the 1/4 mile and trap speeds to compare the E55 and E63. As these people take their E63's and E55's to the drag strip, and as more N. American magazines test the E63, we will soon know the answer as to whether there really is a significant difference between these 2 cars.

This totally reminds me of the debate among C32 owners about the "new" C55 when it was introduced in 2004. Many people said, "That's stupid, putting a heavy V8 into the front of the small C-class......the increase in weight alone in the engine bay will make the C55 handle much worse and will make the C55 slower than the lighter C32."

Well, we now all know those assumptions were all BS. Because of how light the naturally aspirated 5.4L V8 engine is, the C55 is NOT heavier than the C32. With the Direct Control upgrades in the suspension and steering ratio, the C55 actually OUTHANDLES the C32 significantly on a track and finally had handling which came closer than any other previous C-AMG car to the benchmark E46 M3. If you look at all the instrumented tests of the 2 cars, the C55 is probably SLIGHTLY faster than the C32 in a straight line and quite a bit faster on a track.

And so it may be like this with the E55/E63. With the Direct Control upgrades to the steering and suspension, the E63 is probably a much better handling car than the E55. That's certainly the impression I am getting from the car magazines so far. In terms of straight line speed, the E63 and E55 are probably pretty close (like the C55/C32 story). Time will tell.....