How many 4-Valve owners (W124 and W126) owners are out here anyway?
Got to keep this thread alive a little longer....

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84 Dodge Colt Turbo GTS 8-Spd I/C & BPU mods
86 MB 560SEL AMG 6.0 32Valve 400HP Hammer Stock
87 Baker Bass Boat Mod-V 235 Yamaha 85mph GPS
88 Supra Targa Auto BPU++
93.5 Supra Baltic Blue M6 PT-67 1st U.S. Veilside C-1
99 Silverado 2500 6.0 WhippleCharged Toe Truck

You gotta love Setright's writing style...he had the back page in Road & Track for years. I remember one story about how a friend drove his very ill wife to the hospital from the country...how his smoothness and style combined with his desperation and fear...it brought tears to my eyes!

Try as I might, though, I can't find any mention of the term "hammer" in that article?

The earliest reference that I can find in my modest collection old magazines is a June 1986 article in AutoWeek, titled "Hammerin' Down the Road" by David Barry. Partial quote: My AMG loaner was almost identical to the AMG-MB "Hammer" which caused a stir at the last Frankfurt auto show with a claimed top speed of 187mph"

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Dean Albrecht
"Lead, follow, or better yet, get out of the way!"E500 owners motto

This car is very much real!!!!! I use to own one. this car was not 1 0f 13, it was 1 of 10. I had mine for about a year and a half, until it got stolen and transported out of this country on the grey market or thats what I think happen to it. It was a fabulous car and wish I still had it!!!! This car would blow away anything on the road in its time, and still think it would take on a lot of the high end cars of today. A white one was lost in a fire, a blue one was totaled, and my black on silver with a red pin stripe around it was stolen. I have seen one listed for sale in the past and almost bought it, but just couldnt do it, it reminded me to much of mine being stolen. I think it was only like 45K, which is a smokin price. I would have payed double that if it wouldnt have bothered me so much. I have always loved that car, and always will till the day I die. The way that car roared, dropped in the back when you florred it, and smoked everything on the road was amazing. I have a CL65 now, but it doesnt impress me as much as that car did. If anyone has the oppertunity to purchase one, or ride in one I strongly recomend it. Its an amazing car!!!!

As a former writer for AutoWeek, I test drove an AMG Mercedes in Germany in, I think, 1986, and wrote an article about it called "Hammerin' down the Road.'' The car I drove was identical to the AMG "Hammer'' except for some of the underbody work. The most notable attribute about the car was that it had been clocked in Germany at 300 KPH -- which is 189 MPH. That made it pretty much the fastest street-legal car in Europe at the time (though my trip to Germany was to test-drive the Porsche 959 at Nurburgring, a significantly faster car, but there were was only one with a street license at the time -- belonging to Dr. Helumt bott, of Porsche). The Hammer had absolutely nothing to do with a Mercedes 560SL. It had nothing to do with Mercedes-Benz, either, as AMG was a wholly-owned company at the time, which prepared Mercedes-Benz entries in European sedan racing and built hot-rods like the Hammer. At the time I drove the car and wrote about it, there was only one Hammer. One of the posters comments that I read are correct -- the price of the car was going to be $160,000. It was a savagely fun car to drive. Tremendous acceleration and absolute precision controls. My only regret was failing to find any cars on the Autobahn to street race with. Forget what you've heard about that fabled road. When I was there, nobody was going faster than 110, and there were no fast cars in sight.

The name Hammer did not come from Road and Track. R & T had nothing to do with it. The name was from AMG. Properly, it was Der Hammer. Since my loaner was not an exact copy of the Hammer, I nicknamed the one I drove the Jabberwock. If anyone has a copy of the article I wrote for AutoWeek I would be glad to see it. It's been a long time.

I scanned that article and posted it on 500Ecstasy.com/forums

Look in history forum.