Darth Väther's 430kW C63 estate

[vader]

Darth Väther's 430kW C63 estate


If George Lucas was German, Luke’s father would have used a black Väth V63RS Clubsport Wagon to get around.

Although the Hösbach-based company is a lesser known German performance engineering concern – and Yoda only knows how many there are – Väth’s technical team has taken quite a liking to Mercedes-Benz’s C63 Estate.

We should probably have squeezed the AMG acronym between ‘C63’ and ‘Estate’ in the previous sentence, it’s the correct moniker. In German aftermarket tuning circles though, AMG is a euphemism for restricted V8s.



Väth’s V63RS Clubsport Wagon features a carbon-fibre embellished front bumper, bonnet and aft diffuser.

Suffice to say, you’d prefer the neighbourhood kids to not indulge in a game of street cricket close to your V63RS, carbon-fibre crack repair costs being what they are…

Yellow, certainly not mellow, V8

Pop the carbon-fibre bonnet and AMG’s V8 is left displacing a standard 6.2l. Väth is decidedly coy about the details of its engine conversion, and we can only assume those daffodil-yellow air intake covers are part of the magic which raises power from 336 to 430kW.

Rotational force is up by 90Nm from 600- to 690Nm, and though you’ll need the force to be with you in the wet, there is a 60% locking bias limited-slip differential (LSD) directing torque traffic on the rear axle.


AMG's 6.2l V8 has massive amounts of latent power available with very little tinkering required. Väth won't say what they've done, some ECU work and a revised exhaust are probably responsible for the nearly 100kW jump in power.

Despite the best intentions of the LSD (differential, not the drug) those power figures resign the 285-25 profile rear tyres to supplementary clutch duty, and Väth doesn’t even bother to provide official acceleration figures. Ungoverned, the V63RS will run a true 325mk/h top speed, though.

A high-performance braking system (with standard AMG calipers?) and coil-over suspension installation shore up handling responses and decelerative stability, ensuring the additional performance is useable – kind of.

Justifiable insanity?

Performance purists might scoff at the idea of a 430kW estate car, yet if you think about it for a moment it makes sense dynamically. If one considers the balanced weight distribution of the C63 Estate with the rear third steel structure offsetting the front axle mass of the V8, then this V63RS is a neat deal.

If Darth Vader had a black Väth V63RS to temper his unhappy Anakin childhood memories and accommodate Luke, Princess Leia and their entourage (well it’s an estate after all) there would possibly have been no need for the Death Star.

Väth’s V63RS is the coolest thing to ever come out of Hösbach, no question. Is it cooler than the Millennium Falcon though? Well, nearly, but not quite.

http://www.wheels24.co.za/Content/Custo ... C63_estate