This Mercedes 560 SEL AMG is absolutely brilliant and up for sale

AMG is an absolute juggernaut these days. It’s the performance arm of a preeminent car manufacturer, the force behind years of F1 dominance and an engine builder par excellence. And it’s hard to say it doesn’t deserve every bit of that success.

But back when there were two countries called Germany, when Tim Berners-Lee was in the process of inventing the internet and when flexing was something bodybuilders did, AMG was still an aftermarket tuner.

With that said, the machine AMG’s built back in 1989 – the 560 SEL AMG 6.0 – was absolutely still a flex; perhaps not in name, but definitely in spirit. Taking the most expensive, most powerful Mercedes S-Class of the time and using it as a starting point is not what you’d call the modus operandi of the timid or humble.

AMG started with Mercedes’ best effort – a 5,547cc V8, which was good for about 275bhp in the ‘standard’ 560 SEL – and decided it’d be better for all concerned if it were bored out to an even six litres. After adding a set of AMG-exclusive, DOHC, four-valve heads, as well as a new intake and full exhaust, the end result was good for a conservatively estimated 380bhp. And, apocryphally, twice as much torque – at half the engine speed the original engine needed to achieve it.

A quick bit of maths puts that torque figure up around the 600lb ft mark, which does feel impossible for a 6.0-litre naturally aspirated engine from the late Eighties... even one from AMG. But if anyone has a 560 SEL AMG 6.0 and would like to prove us wrong, do feel free to get in touch.

In any case, it was enough to launch this leviathan – leather-wrapped power seats, chunky wooden tray tables and all – to the far side of 180mph. And, with free rein on the options list, the far side of $190,000. And that’s in 1989 dollars, too. Which does make RM Sotheby’s $90,000 to $120,000 auction estimate for this kitted-out 560 AMG seem like a bargain.

But the 560 AMG 6.0 was always a rolling testament to the ecstasy of excess, so the idea of being circumspect – and missing out on AMG’s wheels and body kit in the process – feels like missing the point entirely. The 560 AMG is mad, massive and unmistakably Eighties, and that’s what makes it – and indeed the old, independent AMG – amazing.

So sure, AMG is an absolute juggernaut these days. But the 560 SEL 6.0 makes us wonder if life wasn’t better when AMG built juggernauts instead.