"Brutal", "joyous", "terrifying", and "downright addictive" are all adjectives that can be used for the way the E55 accelerates from a standstill. There's a sense of elasticity where you feel as if the car is always trying to catch up to the engine. Note to rookies: make sure your latte's stashed in the cupholders are empty.

In most performance cars, third gear is the one that gets your hair to stand on end. With the mandatory five-speed manumatic found in the E55 first, second, third, fourth, and hell, even fifth, all can cause blurry vision. For firing off snappier upshifts, the tranny is tuned more aggressively than what you'll find in an E500. And what we think every manumatic tranny should have, soft-touch shifters on the backside of the steering wheel, work well. If you want immediate downshifts, hold the console shifter to the downshift position and the tranny's electronics will pick the appropriate gear. Cool.

But what happens when you run out of open parking lot, or when you want to guide this missile down a twisty path?

This is still a Mercedes at heart, so a supple ride is still present despite a reworked E Class chassis with a tighter spec air suspension and variable damping. The body is buttoned down, and the E55 AMG is composed even over the cratered pavement that we found in Montreal where we picked up the car. As you would expect with 469 horsepower, ESP and traction control are onboard with Mercedes's policy of not being able to totally deactivate these nannies.

Speed-sensitive steering is very direct at 2.75 turns lock-to-lock with more feel than its lessor E Class brethren, and weights up well at highway speeds. All of these electronics try to reign in body motions, but there is always a small time lag between the chassis settling itself in a corner, and then the driver thinking, "Okay, NOW I can lay the power down..."

The E55 AMG's engine bay may be ready for warfare, but the interior is definitely a step up from any military HumVee. Our car's all-charcoal interior (even the wood trim was stained the color of coal) was standard E500, except for touches like the silver-faced driver instrumentation and AMG badges sprinkled on the doorsills and the seats. Oh yeah, the "seats"...

Our car was fitted with the Dynamic Seat option, which has the standard Mercedes power seat controls, plus an additional set of controls at the front of the seat underneath your thighs. If you press the right button (which we advise you do while at a stop), the seat takes over and starts enthusiastically pumping up the appropriate bolsters to hug your torso and thighs in spirited cornering. I understand the theory, but it can be distracting at times when you are trying to keep this missile between the intended lines.

With competitors such as Audi's RS6 and BMW's M5 on hiatus for the 2005 model year, its almost as if the E55 AMG has caused the competition to go into retreat to build up their own arsenals in preparation of future battles. If your defense budget has been slashed this year, there's always Jaguar's S-Type R ($84,995 Cdn.) or Cadillac's new STS-V ($92,250 Cdn. est., available June 1). If you do have the budget, and the desire to drive a car that doesn't shout its capabilities, then the E55 AMG should be your weapon of choice.