For middle-aged people in the late ’90s, there was only one thing more exciting than getting your hands on the latest Ally McBeal box set: it was called “the minivan”. For good reason, parents in the ’90s and 2000s finally clocked that driving around in a van that was converted into a semi-luxury car-like-thing made a lot of sense. Minivan gurus Chrysler had been selling these types of vehicles since the mid-’80s, and Renault had been marketing the Espace for a while, but these boxes on wheels really took off at the turn of the millennium.
Obviously, these days, nothing less than a serious off-roader will do for dropping the kids off at school, but two decades ago, moms and dads couldn’t hand over their cash quickly enough for the latest minivan, aka the multi-purpose vehicle (MPV). The craze got so – er –crazy, that even the big luxury manufacturers started stepping in.
What happened next could best be described as peak minivan. While Renault had built a one-off 800-horsepower Espace fitted with a Renault V10 Formula 1 engine for a bit of a laugh, another manufacturer wondered what would actually happen if an insane amount of power were put into a production minivan and then sold it to the mass market. The answer? Probably the craziest sleeper car of its era, bar none.
It went toe-to-toe with America’s finest V8s, then quietly slipped under the radar. Today, it’s a bargain most gearheads still overlook.
As the world rotated into the 2000s, it was clear that the millennium bug didn’t have much sting in its tail, and the world wasn’t going to end. Relieved Earth-dwellers started to notice that they had quite a lot of money in their pockets and were celebrating by buying lots of new cars. Manufacturers in Europe and the USA were responding by copying what the Japanese had been doing in their domestic market for years. That is, trying to make a different model to fill every possible niche in the market, as well as a few that no one actually needed. Mercedes-Benz was creating all sorts of new models, from entry-level A-classes to billionaire-spec SLRs, but the German carmaker had one up its sleeve that was a sort of Swiss Army Knife of four-wheeled machines.
The R-Class arrived for 2005 as a kind of SUV-minivan-sedan thingy, with plenty of luxury, five doors, and space for six people. In many ways, it’s a brilliant design. It’s practical, upmarket, and very Mercedesy and well-built. Kind of like a cross between an A-Class and a G-Wagon…and a Sprinter thrown in for good measure. For the well-healed executive who doesn’t want the hassle of having two or three cars, you could have them all rolled into one. You could get a V6 or a gutsy V8, with a capable 4MATIC all-wheel-drive system, all finished off in a comfortable, high-end package. What more could anyone ask for?
Well, there was something. Mercedes realized that there was one Mercedes that had been left out of the R-Class recipe. That was the top-end AMG models. There might have been someone out there who felt that a V8 SUV minivan with seating for the whole family missed the mark without almost double the amount of power that you would find in a WRC car of that era. The R63 AMG was the answer. Oh, and just for the record, Ferrari’s beautiful F430 of the same era had to make do with just 483 horsepower.
This overlooked supercar makes so much torque it had to be limited to protect its drivetrain, and yet it’s ridiculously cheap on the used market.
Engine
6.2-liter V8
Power
507 hp
Torque
465 lb-ft
Top Speed
155 mph (limited)
0-60 mph
4.6 seconds
Transmission
7-speed automatic
Source: Mercedes-AMG
The R63 AMG was in a niche of a niche, but that doesn’t stop it from being incredibly impressive. Mercedes and AMG managed to crowbar a naturally aspirated 507-horsepower, 6.2-liter V8 into the nose of the R-Class, creating a minivan that could drag race a Porsche 911 GT3 on the way to soccer practice, if that’s your thing. The R63 can hit 60 mph in 4.6 seconds and is electronically limited to 155 mph, although the speedo went up to an indicated 200 mph as reminder, of what could happen if the buffers were taken off.
The transmission is a seven-speed automatic, and AMG tweaked the suspension to keep the 5,300 lbs in check. There are also, thankfully, huge 15.4-inch rotors up front and 14.4-inch rotors in the back to bring things to a halt. Fancy doing a couple of laps of the Nürburgring while the kids are doing karate lessons? That’s possible too with the R63, as the video above shows with YouTube legend Misha Charoudin at the wheel.
Clearly, just 507 horsepower isn’t quite enough for some R63 owners. In 2020, a very special R63 appeared on Bring A Trailer, featuring a Weistec Engineering Stage 2 supercharger kit that pushed output up to 700 horsepower. The car was said to have been treated to $63,000 in modification work by Weistec, including SLS valve-lifter buckets, a Weistec intercooler and exhaust system, Brembo brakes, custom 21″ Monoblock-style wheels, lowered suspension, and much more. The car sold for an impressive $70,000. Read on to find out how much a standard R63 will set you back in 2025.
To say the R63 is rare is an understatement. The hot Merc minivan was only sold for a year in the USA (with a sticker price of $88,175) and during that time, very few were sold. Forum users at mbworld.org claim that around 100 were registered in America, while one well-respected car magazine puts the figure at just 108 units sold in the country. Whatever the figure, there is no denying this is one of the rarest Mercedes-AMG models ever made. This leads to a bit of a paradox.
On the one hand, the R63 is an incredibly rare and unusual performance car, while on the other, it seemed, when new at least, to be so quirky that not a lot of people actually wanted one. The average used price for the 2007 model year R63 is $34,788, says Classic.com, so clearly the R63 does have a cult following, or at least when one does go on sale it produces a lot of interest. For reference, a 2007 Mercedes-AMG E63 sedan has an average price of just $18,557, says Classic.com. Recently, an R63 came up for auction on Bringatrailer.com with a whopping 188,000 miles on the clock – that car sold for $23,000.
Source: Classic.com
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