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It was barely past sunup when I got to Mark Varo’s house in Santa Monica, and he was already out front on his BlackBerry text-messaging somebody about something. As a private wealth manager at a major Wall Street firm’s West Coast office, Varo, 38, isn’t the sort of guy who waits for opportunity to set up a meeting. His work schedule, he says, isn’t so much a schedule as an absolute commitment to act, react, instigate or report whenever necessary from wherever he is. And, like everyone else in Southern California, that usually means from his car.
Thus the early hour — necessitated by the small window within which Varo’s availability coincided with that of the 2007 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG that I had arranged for us to drive. The car is generally considered the finest overall production four-door sedan in the world; it’s a road-churning monster; we had three hours to kill; we were hungry. Our plan therefore seemed clear: We would bolt up the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu, eat breakfast, then take the long way back across the Santa Monica Mountains toward LAX. If all went well, by 10 a.m. Varo would be hopping on a plane and heading to Vancouver for some client face-time.
Then again, we could have simply driven to Vancouver — because if you’re going to spend 18 hours in a car, the S65 would be a good choice. With the exception of the Maybach line, the S65 is the most expensive sedan Mercedes builds. And with 604 horsepower available from its twin-turbocharged, 6.0-liter V12,
it’s the most powerful production four-door available from any manufacturer at any price. It shares its sheet metal, structure and basic suspension design with the other S-Class Mercedes sedans, but AMG, Mercedes’s in-house tuning firm, has tweaked every mechanical and decorative detail for high performance and even higher luster. On top of that reside layers of technology to ensure that even the most ham-fisted driver can handle all that power without wrapping the car around a utility pole — or, if he does wreck the car, ensure that he survives to buy another Mercedes.
As I pulled the S65 in front of his house, Varo finished thumb-punching and got his first eyeful. And while there’s no way for a sedan to pack the visual wallop of a sports car, the S65 was undeniably muscle-bound. “It looks so strong,” Varo mused. “Like it wants to burst out of its own skin.” Credit for that goes to
the oversize 20-inch-diameter wheels inside massive 255/35ZR20 front and 275/35ZR20 rear tires, which, thanks to their open five-spoke design, effectively show off the cross-drilled brake rotors and the gorgeous eight-piston calipers on the front pair. Granted, the front air dam extends further down than in other S-Class machines, the side sills are more aggressively sculpted and those four huge exhaust pipes are impressive, but what gives the S65 its intense presence — and provocative stance — are those super-bad wheels.
Since we had places to go, I tossed Varo the keys, he settled behind the wheel and. . . did not turn the key, as there’s no key to twist in the S65. When the car senses the key fob in the driver’s pocket, it simply readies itself to be started with the push of a button. And it takes only a single quick press of that button — there’s no need to hold the starter until the engine catches — as the engine control computer manages a precise start-up procedure that ends with a vivid initial exhaust growl. "Wow," Varo said, gripping the wood-and-leather steering wheel a bit tighter upon hearing that. "It even sounds fast."
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