Mercedes-AMG rental
Kuala Lumpur

AMG began as two Mercedes engineers running a tuning shop out of an old mill in Grossaspach, and the culture never really changed. The division's defining principle — one man, one engine, with the builder's signature plate on the cam cover — still applies to the hand-assembled units, and it explains why an AMG feels different from a fast Mercedes. The chassis is usually a Mercedes chassis reworked. The engine is the whole point.

The A45 S is the extreme example and the most technically interesting car we hold from Affalterbach. Its M139 two-litre four-cylinder produces 415 bhp, which is 208 bhp per litre — the highest specific output of any production four-cylinder engine ever built, achieved with a roller-bearing twin-scroll turbo mounted backwards on a rotated cylinder head. It revs to 7,200, it is violent in a way nothing else in that class is, and the all-wheel-drive system will genuinely send all of the rear torque to one wheel to rotate the car. It is an engineering flex disguised as a hatchback-derived saloon.

The A35 is the accessible entry into the same philosophy with a more conventional two-litre four, and the GLE 53 and GLC 43 apply it to SUVs with the excellent AMG turbocharged straight-six and a 48-volt electric compressor that fills in the torque before the turbo spools. That EQ Boost system is worth understanding: it is not a hybrid for economy, it is a hybrid to eliminate lag, and the difference in throttle response low down is immediately obvious against a conventionally turbocharged rival.

For Kuala Lumpur, AMG's strength is that these are fast cars that remain complete Mercedes underneath — quiet at a cruise, well isolated over bad surfaces, and equipped with an interior that is a genuinely nicer place to spend an hour in traffic than anything Italian. The exhausts are loud on start-up and in Sport Plus, which is entertaining on the Kerinchi Link and unwelcome at 6am in a condominium basement. There is a quiet-start button. Use it.