Go ahead: Look at that picture. Stare at it. Sop up the colors with your greedy little eyeballs, bask in the reflections, and wrap your brain around just what you're seeing. This, my friends, is a 451-hp, relatively small, relatively fantastic V-8-powered station wagon. And no, you can't have it.
You can't have it because it's a high-zoot, much-love, factory-built brickbat of a tailgate-sportin' machine, and because those sort of things don't sell in America. (Lest you argue, we have to point out that we actually have a fact to back that statement up. And that fact is this: Mercedes-Benz of North America barely cracked triple-digit sales with their 469-hp E55 wagon over that model's entire lifespan. Americans do not buy station wagons.) This particular brand of wheelspin-sportin' five-door hotness is built by Mercedes-Benz, and if you lived in Europe -- or, for that matter, the rest of the world -- you might actually be able to waltz into a dealership and buy one.
Yes, you read that right: Stuttgart is building a C-class wagon, but they're not going to sell it to us. They're not going to sell us the three diesel-powered variants (two four-cylinders and one V-6), they're not going to sell us the two gasoline fours and one gasoline V-6 (including the top-of-the-line C350), and, most importantly, they're not going to sell us the 6.2-liter, 451-hp, AMG-built gasoline V-8. There will be no tiny C-class tailgates engulfed in vaporized rubber. There will be no American yuppies prancing about in just-barely-attainable-for-the-average-Joe paragons of high style and high cargo capacity and enormous speed. There will be, in other words, no joy in Mudville. Or, for that matter, Anytown, U.S.A.
Yes, yes, yes, we know -- you probably want some facts. You probably want me to stop prattling on about oversteer and unattainable glory and all sorts of things like that. Fine. Here: Eighteen cubic feet of cargo space, seats up. Fifty-three cubes, seats folded. Non-AMG C-class wagons get a six-speed manual as standard; the C350 gets a seven-speed automatic. And the C63 wagon enters the world with the usual AMG body kit, stiffer suspension, big brakes, and flashy wheels.
(Sigh.) That's all; you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to go cry on my keyboard. Either that, or start writing letters. The rest of America may not like wagons any more, but hell -- I do. Heathens!