Mercedes CLA45 AMG

It’s the smallest car in Mercedes’s fleet, and also the smallest engine made by AMG: a 2.0 liter turbocharged inline-four. But good things come in small packages: the CLA45 produces 355 horsepower, and because of its small stature, it can hit 62 miles per hour in 4.6 seconds, and on its way to a 167-mile per hour top speed with the optional AMG driver’s package (it’s 155 otherwise).

This puts the CLA45 ahead of the Hammer, which lends testament to how

power-dense today’s small engines are. Though its compact nature is ideal for urban areas and likely makes for an absolute blast on track days, it’s far from the fastest car produced by Benz — but at unde

Consider the CLK Black Series to be the Hammer’s spiritual successor. It follows the same formula — a big honkin’ V8 up front, the flared fender arches, the low, wide stance — only now, this being into the 2000s (2008, specifically), the CLK Black Series picks up 500 horsepower and 485 pound-feet — enough to catapult it to 60 in about 4.0 seconds, and on its way to a 186 mile per hour governed top speed (really, at that speed, it’s probably more about preserving the internals than the safety of the driver).

The party piece of the CLK Black Series is that fantastic engine note — growl, really, as “note” doesn’t convey the same sense of tire destruction that the the ungodly noise implies. The CLK Black Series was actually the street-legal, emissions-sanitized version of the CLK Pace Car for Formula 1, and helped set the tone for all the Black Series vehicles that have since followed.