Geez, the Stig has a cool life. Not only has he been behind the wheel of everything from a Chevrolet Lacetti to a Ariel Atom V8 and McLaren F1, but he also has a secret underground lair where he’s able to take the world’s fastest and loudest cars to their absolute limits.
At least that’s the schtick of Top Gear‘s new “Tunnel Run” YouTube series, which so far has featured an Audi Sport Quattro S1 Group B rally car, BRM Type 15 Grand Prix racer, Lamborghini Huracán STO, and Caterham Seven 620R. The fifth entry in “Tunnel Run” may seem like an anomaly relative to those stripped-down, high-performance beasts. A W140-chassis Mercedes-Benz S600 has style and speed, thanks to a 6.0-liter V12 under the hood, but everything about the flagship S-Class is supposed to exude quietness and comfort, not ear-splitting noise.
Ah, but this is no ordinary S600.
Making internet history
Seasoned armchair racers will remember back in 2016 when a big-body Benz started appearing in YouTube videos, reposted ad nauseam on Reddit and Jalopnik and everywhere else you got your news. Fashioned with custom equal-length headers and a mufflerless exhaust system, this S600 sounded like a Formula 1 racing car, screaming through the long gears of its automatic transmission to thrill and terrify onlookers with its relentless tailpipe music.
Built by the mysterious Sasaki-San through his Brilliant Exhaust speed shop in Kawasaki, Japan, the S600 is a JDM-only AMG model featuring unique pistons and an ECU tune for a total of 439 horsepower. And then, of course, there’s the exhaust, the subject of the latest TG Tunnel Run.
The three cars that ran through the Stig’s hilariously long echo chamber produced some eardrum-rupturing noise themselves: 95 decibels for the Lambo, just over 100 dB for the Caterham, 126.6 dB for the Audi, and a noise so loud it didn’t even register on the meter for the old Grand Prix racer. Where does the Brilliant Exhaust–ified Mercedes lie on the scale? I won’t spoil the video, but I bet you’ll be surprised. Grab some earphones and (carefully) turn up the volume before you click play.
