Brabus 800 E V12 Cabriolet – it’s a bonkers Mercedes E-Class Cabriolet

Brabus 800 E V12 Cabriolet

So you fancy a Mercedes E-Class Cabriolet, but you feel Mercedes has failed miserably to endow any E-Class Cab with enough power to whip the skin off a rice pudding. What do you do?

You go out and grab yourself an E-Class Cab tweaked and fettled by Brabus – something like the new Brabus 800 E V12 Cabriolet with 800 continental horses at its disposal – more than enough speed on tap to whip the syrups off your back-seat passengers.

Brabus are calling the 800 E V12 Cabriolet the fastest four-seat production cabriolet in the world, and they’re probably not wrong. Even the Bentley Continental Supersports rag top with its W12 takes 4.1 seconds to get to 62mph – a tardy 0.4 seconds more than the Brabus. It also runs out of steam at just 202mph, whereas the Brabus pounds on to 231mph.

All this power is bestowed on the C-Class platform of the E-Class Cabriolet by taking Mercedes 5.5 litre out of the S600 and boring it out to 6.3 litres, chucked in a heap of balanced and fettled gubbins, plugged their laptop in to its ECU and up popped a massive 788bhp.

But its not the power that’s the most awesome figure, it’s the 1074lbs/ft of torque the 800 E delivers. With that much torque there’s a very good chance you could set off in top gear, still tear a hole in the tarmac and get to 124mph in under 10 seconds.

Of course Brabus aren’t daft enough just to crank up the power without fettling everything else – from the suspension to the brakes to the cooling – in the process. They’ve also re-trimmed the cabin in lipstick red and black leather and splashed lumps of carbon fibre around the place.

Which is the least you’d expect for €478,000

(31 photos – click any thumbnail for full gallery)

By Cars UK