2017 Mercedes AMG GLE 63 S

You make the rules, we’ll find new ways around them.

That could be AMG’s motto and maybe is . . . unofficially. The Rhinoceros Thing you see before you is somehow fully compliant with every government reg; and yet… well, just look at it.

Al Gore does not approve.

But it’s all – for the moment – perfectly legal. There is nothing they – the short-haired termagants at EPA and the beetle-like killjoys at NHTSA – can do to stop you from buying one or Mercedes (via AMG, Benz’s in-house high-performance skunkworks) from building it.

Why are the most advertised Gold and Silver coins NOT the best way to invest?

It’s got to be making them nuts.

WHAT IT IS

Start with a GLE – a big and very heavy (5,000-plus pound) Mercedes SUV. Shave and swoop the roof but keep the regular GLE’s bog-hopping 9.1 inches of ground clearance. Chuck the puny 3.5 liter V6, the hybrid idiocy and the workhorse diesel. Install in their place your pick of AMG-massaged twin-turbo power plants, starting with a twin-turbo V6 and 362 hp as the appetizer and then – the main course – a hand-built, 5.5 liter, 557 hp V8.

Of course, this kind of fun costs.

Base price for the AMG GLE 43 and its 362 hp bi-turbo V6 is $69,650.

The twin-turbo V8 AMG GLE 63’s base price soars to $110,650.

If this thing has a cross-shop, it is the $103,195 BMW X6 M   which started the nuthouse riot by doing the same thing first. The X6 M is a slope-roofed, jacked-up X5 SUV with a twin-turbo V8, too.

AMG simply upped the ante.

WHAT’S NEW

They are still getting away with it.

Someone is bound to notice and then the game will be up.

I’d hurry.

WHAT’S GOOD

Outrun almost anything – or run over almost anything.

Despite being even more jacked-up than the X6, the Mercedes has the more pliant ride.

Head and legroom in both rows is still about the same as in the conventionally SUV-bodied GLE – and more than in the X6 M.

7,200 lb. max tow rating beats X6 M’s 6,000 pound max.

WHAT’S NOT SO GOOD

Imagine Brie Larsen is your girlfriend. But if you touch her, she’ll explode.

The USB hook-ups buried in the center console will make you want to explode.

UNDER THE HOOD

Everything is relative.

Our sun, for example, is relatively big  . . . compared with the Earth. But compared with VY Canis Majoris, our sun is a speck of sand.

The AMG 43’s 362 hp V6 is like the sun. Pretty impressive.

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