   2014 Mercedes-Benz E 63 AMG Wagon. Click image to enlarge |
Review and photos by Jonathan Yarkony
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
– Revelation 6:8, King James Bible
There are four more horses out of jobs these days.
The Horseman of the Apocalypse, should they arrive in the next year or two, will surely arrive comfortably ensconced in this spacious and apocalyptic shuttle, the Mercedes-Benz E 63 AMG Wagon. If I was one such horseman, it would definitely be the pale horse of choice for me, looking particularly cold and heartless in this Polar White shade. Plenty of room for my three buddies, too. And their gear. Trust me, when you travel with Pestilence, War and Famine, they don’t pack light (okay, maybe Famine does, but the guy never stops eating – how does he stay so skinny?). And War? War refuses to go anywhere without a big honkin’ chest.
Lucky for us the Mercedes-Benz E 63 AMG Wagon, nicknamed here at the Autos.ca offices “Hellwagon”, has 695 L of space behind the rear seats (and that measure is below the rear windows, as it is easily larger – wider and deeper – than compact crossovers like the RAV4 and CR-V, which are right around 1,000 L with seats up). Total cargo volume grows to 1,950 L with the rear seats folded (very close to those same compact utes). As strongly as we feel about wagons, that is only a small part of the charm of this vehicle, though it is the one aspect that makes this an incredibly rare beast.
In fact, it’s rarer to find a wagon these days than it is to hear about another 500-hp luxury vehicle. It seems like you can’t throw a shammy at an auto show these days without it landing on a 500+ hp four-door coupe. So a 500-hp wagon, here in North America? It is the last of its breed, unless Cadillac surprises us with a return of the CTS-V wagon. I wouldn’t bet on that. Sure we get the occasional taste of an illicit superwagon over in Yoorup, but the breed is rarer than unicorns, so how does it survive here?
Simple. Mercedes-Benz has a commitment to diversity that has them covering every niche imaginable from insanely powered mini-four-door coupes and weapons-grade baby utes to obscenely powered ostentatiously trimmed formerly utilitarian military-purpose vehicles. Thank you, Mercedes! There is no branch of overpowered vehicle that they will not explore.
   2014 Mercedes-Benz E 63 AMG Wagon. Click image to enlarge |
So back to our darling Hellwagon. Why would we give such an innocent, angelic-looking practical family hauler such an evil moniker? It all starts with the push of the big silver button to the right of the steering wheel. That button summons not just 500 furious horses to breach that psychological barrier, and not the awe-inspiring 550 horsepower of your garden-variety E 63 AMG (whether wagon or sedan), but fully 577 horsepower that make your average scorned woman seem like a Stepford wife. These are very angry horses. The minute the engine comes to life, they are snorting, pawing at the ground and straining against the harness. Prod the throttle a bit and the exhaust picks up the refrain with snarls and bellows, the car shaking in excitement like a possessed stallion penned in too long in its stall, a frightful symphony that had me sitting in parking lots howling with glee repetedly stabbing at the pedal. The amount of pleasure this thing gives just sitting in an underground carpark stomping the accelerator probably means it is illegal. It must be. And this is even before laying a hand on the delectable alcantara-trimmed steering wheel.
