Distance-obliterating pace. A meaty roar when the engine's in full song. A shape that grabs attention - it's the Mercedes-Benz CLS 55 AMG, the latest supercharged road-ripper from what once upon a time used to be a fairly conservative motor company.
We've made no secret that the blown 5.5-litre V8 is one of our favourite engines - must have something to do with the 350kW and 700Nm - and it's been used to great adrenalin-generating effect in various models from the three-pointed star stable.
But this is the most exotic body - it looks like a ballistic banana - yet to wrap the engine.
The E55 AMG, for instance, is brutally fast, but doesn't look all that different from your average Benz middle-management sedan. The CLS four-door coupe, on the other hand, has the outlandish shape that a powerful engine such as this demands.
And if you're wondering how a coupe, which by usual definition has only two doors, can have four - well, that's just the way Merc sees it. It describes the CLS as a coupe with convenience, requiring nothing as unbecoming as having to squeeze rear seat passengers through the front doors.
OK, we won't be too pedantic and let them to get away with the term because except for the doors the CLS really does look like a coupe with its sleek roofline and severely raked front and rear glass, giving it a windswept, go-fast-while-standing-still look.
AMG body styling and quad tailpipes identify it as the big daddy of the CLS range.
It's a curious design with that banana-shaped curve along its flanks and its watermelon-wedge lights. It looks awkward and mildly unsettling at first but begins to grow on you after a few days, and eventually something in your consciousness goes "ping" and it's beautiful.
It seems to have the same slow-brewed effect on most people.
Whether you like its lines or not, the CLS stands out like a classy leather briefcase among a pile of school bags. It looks expensive and exotic and mildly anti-establishment, the incumbent behind the wheel likely to be some Richard Branson-type, middle-aged fatcat in touch with his playful side.
The car has a playful side too, which is awakened when you touch the trigger. Jam the throttle pedal to the floor and the big car shoots off like a cheetah with an electric shock applied to its testicles. No lag, no hesitation, just an instant rush of g-force.
The livid immediacy of the power delivery is what gets you. The 100km/h mark is dispensed with in a shade under five seconds (if you're at sea level) and that's just the start as the big Benz continues galloping forward as if the very hounds of hell were chasing it.
Top speed is the usual artificially governed 250km/h but at this speed it's still accelerating hard enough to convince you that nearly 300km/h would be on the cards without the electronic nanny.
Going soon
As much as we like this Merc engine it's not going to be around for much longer. Benz has decided to ditch supercharging in favour of big cubic capacity and the next generation flagship CLS, unveiled at the recent Geneva auto show, has a normally aspirated 6.3-litre V8 AMG engine wielding 378kW for a claimed 0-100km/h time of 4.5 secs.
This 6.3 will gradually replace the blown 5.5 V8 in all of Benz's AMG models.
The current CLS 55 has AMG's Speedshift five-speed auto transmission, which I prefer to the seven-speed auto used in non-AMG models as it doesn't hunt for gears so much and feels less frantic. Shifts can also be done F1-style with paddles on the steering wheel.
The car rides on a cushion of air - literally. The active air suspension has an adaptive damping system that allows you, depending on your mood and the driving situation, to jab a button and make the ride racetrack-stiff or soft-for-cruising.
The air suspension lowers the ride height by 15mm at more than 130km/h to reduce atmospheric resistance and improve handling stability.
Whimpering passengers
The CLS is too big to feel really agile through tight corners - it's a grand tourer not a sports car - but it's terrifically composed through long, fast sweeps where it displays impressive balance and grip.
Your passengers' inbuilt g-force meters will force them to whimper long before this car breaks traction. Those fat tyres grip very well in the wet too, as we found out in one of Gauteng's many recent downpours.
Under hard acceleration or braking, the car doesn't pitch fore and aft like a boat on a rough sea. The body stays parallel to the road which makes the big Benz feel lighter than its 1.9 tons.
The CLS is a large car and its 4.9m length places it between the mid-sized E-Class and the flagship S-Class. It's not over-endowed with cabin space, though. The two rear bucket seats have decent legroom but with that low ceiling passengers around 1.8m tall will feel a tad claustrophobic.
Nothing cramped about the 495-litre boot though, which will swallow a generous stack of Louis Vuitton's products.
High-adrenalin interior design is presented in Benz's typically classy fashion, and includes double-stitched nappa leather, an AMG instrument cluster with a 320km/h speedometer scale, and chromed door sill panels with the AMG logo.
Should be standard
All manner of push-button luxuries are present while optional features include Distronic (which keeps a set following distance to the car in front), parktronic (it beeps when you get too close to an object), keyless-go (you get to keep the key in your pocket while unlocking the car or starting the engine) and voice control.
For R945 000, you'd expect these to be standard, though.
And the car really does make a nice noise, a manly V8 rumble that's just prominent enough to be heard but not unbecomingly loud. Smooth and sophisticated, that's what Mercs are all about, and the car lopes along with minimum noise or harshness, ferrying passengers with pace and grace.
It's fast and exciting but doesn't quite foam at the mouth like a BMW M6.