Last year at the Villa d’Este concours, BMW unveiled something called the Concept Touring Coupe, and it was spectacular. Essentially a Z4 shooting brake, it was a modern reinterpretation of the iconic Z3 Coupe, also known as the Clownshoe. Unfortunately, it remained a concept, but desire for shooting brakes swelled. Well, famous Mercedes tuner Brabus took one look at the Mercedes-AMG SL with shooting brake dreams in its head, and got to work. Welcome to the Brabus Rocket GTS, a 986-horsepower hybrid that might just be the best new Mercedes on the planet.
On first glance the Brabus Rocket GTS appears striking more than it appears anything approaching conventionally beautiful, but that’s largely a good thing. There’s a sort of brutish character to it, from the angular roofline to the swollen arches. It carries a similarly polarizing vibe as an Alfa Romeo SZ (in a good way), and yet it doesn’t really look anything like it. It’s not aggressively ugly like so many cars today, it’s purposeful and as a result, slightly cool. The function here is to cram a bunch of luggage in the back, and then fire it down an Autobahn at triple-digit speeds.
Sure, the roofline could be a bit better resolved, and the rear end has the same bottom-heavy look as the Mercedes-AMG SL grand tourer the Brabus Rocket GTS is based on, but considering the limitations of the starting platform, Brabus has done the lion’s share of turning an okay-looking grand tourer into something purposeful, muscular, and unique.
Plus, there are some angles from which the Rocket GTS just instinctively looks right. The front three-quarter is proper, with vented, widened fenders planting the thing on the tarmac while the longer roofline makes the wheelbase look less stubby. Staggered aerodisc wheels measuring 21 inches in diameter up front and 22 out back fill the arches nicely, and there’s a great deal of grille honesty going on up front.
Zoom in, and you’ll realize that the coachwork of the Rocket GTS is entirely made out of carbon fiber. Hood, roof, fenders, doors, quarter panels, bumpers, the hatch, the side skirts, you name it. It looks wild, but even though Brabus doesn’t specify a curb weight, don’t expect the Rocket GTS to be light.
That’s because under the hood, this shooting brake pairs a twin-turbocharged V8 with a plug-in hybrid electrified torque kick. However, this isn’t just the same four-liter V8 as the regular SL with a tune. Instead, it’s been punched out to 4.5 liters of displacement, courtesy of an extra one millimeter of bore and an extra eight millimeters of stroke. At the same time, Brabus has fitted new turbochargers and a new exhaust system so that the engine makes 784 horsepower on its own. Add in a 150 kW electric motor fed by a 6.1 kWh battery pack, and Brabus claims 986 combined horsepower and 1,342 lb.-ft. of torque. That ought to haul the mail.
Mind you, while claimed figures are still insanely quick, they might not be as quick as you’d expect something with this insane power to be. Brabus claims zero-to-62 mph in 2.6 seconds, zero-to-124 mph in 9.5 seconds, and zero-to-186 mph in 23.6 seconds. Top speed? Limited to 196 mph.
However, does a quicker turn-key shooting brake exist? Possibly not. For the brave few who covet a new shooting brake and have seven figures to spend, the Brabus Rocket GTS might be just the ticket.
(Photo credits: Brabus)
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Oh my – a badly lit dark car in front of a dark background. I have seen spy shots of camouflaged prototypes that have given me more information about the car‘s shape than these here.
Not very often cars make me smile by just looking at them but as soon as I saw the front quarter picture...holy crap this thing looks mean.
It does appear to be ONE… STEP… BEYOOOND!
From the rear, it looks like someone took a Porsche Cayenne/Macan and squashed it.
Raise it up a few inches for a rally-style, off-roadable stance and give it 40 or 50 miles of electric range and NewDavid™ will be sure to order one. Could they have it ready in seven weeks?
It looks someone with ‘fuck you money’ decided to go all-in with a Mercedes A-Klasse hatchback
I generally don’t care much about insane rich people cars, nor Brabus styling, but I have to drop in and at least say I’m glad there is 1 more shooting brake in the world!