AUTOCARS COLECTION 2011

Roger Daltrey has gone on record as saying that in the Who’s early days, they were paid ₤75 to ₤150 a show, yet they would bust-up around ₤250-300 worth of gear every time they took to the stage. That’s bad math. Similarly, Mercedes-Benz asks those willing to pay $57,350 for its least expensive AMG model – theC63 AMG – to pony up a further $5,950 for the new-for-2010 P31 AMG Development Package that adds 30 horsepower, uprated brakes and a passel of miscellaneous hi-po gear.

From the perspective of a rational consumer, this too, fails to add up, as the standard-issue C63 is already a hooligan’s hooligan, a car from which no sane individual would walk away wishing for bigger stones. But as with Daltrey’s Who, the C63 is a fantastically overachieving beast of rather pedestrian roots, and when it comes down to it, adding the Dev Pack promises to be like dropping off Pete Townshend in the brand-new lobby of a mid-’60s Holiday Inn. With a set of Marshall stacks. 

Drunk and fresh off a painful breakup. In other words, it might not make a whole lot of sense or be a particularly wise financial decision, but it’s also a brave call with the glorious potential for unbridled mayhem.