Insanity made real
While playing Forza 3 at the height of my addiction this past Spring, I built the most ridiculous of cars – a radioactive spider-bitten Mercedes B-Class with probably four times its value worth of performance modifications. At the end of my spending spree, I took it onto the Maple Valley racetrack to see what I had produced.
The results were interesting. Namely, the car fell over at the slightest indication of a corner. Then the back window fell out.
My surprise was supreme when I saw that Mercedes had built this:
Autoweek was invited to drive it by the Benz-people, reporting on its creation and specifics.
As its name suggests, the superbly constructed one-off prototype is well removed from the standard B-class. Having started life as a humble European-market B200 CDI, it has been liberated from its standard turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder diesel engine. Shoehorned into its place and other extremities of the engine bay is the 5.5-liter V8 unit packing 383 hp and 391 lb-ft of torque.
Yes, but how did it handle? Was more time spent wondering how the ground “got up there” than actually rounding the test track?
Apart from a lack of self-centering with the steering, whose packaging has been compromised by the need to give up so much space to the engine and thus runs a smaller hydraulic pump than perhaps is required, the B55 also steers accurately, rides with impressive comfort and is free of any obvious vices.
Oh.
Well, don’t get too excited about it, because it’s never coming to the States with anything like this configuration (except in my dreams.)