The traction control system tames any wheel spin by applying the brakes; if that's not enough the throttle is reduced. If you find an open straight road and decide to play drag racer and upshift manually, it won't let you get away with anything silly. At 6000 rpm, 500 past the power peak, the rev limiter whacks you like a nun with a ruler. It retards the timing before it cuts the spark, in order to "soften the attack of spark interrupt," says Mercedes, but the attack remains pretty convincing. There were two things we never adusted to during our week in the E55. The throttle has a hair trigger, so, for example in fast-food drive-thru lines, you have to think eggshells under your foot if you don't want to take off. The other thing was dartiness over certain freeway terrain, which may have come from the big tires. The car seemed to leap sideways at both ends - not a lot, but enough to get our attention. By the same token, it moved between lanes as if the front wheels were mind readers. The steering wheel takes a hint and delivers you precisely to your destination. Dead-on every time, never a correction necessary.
Now comes the dazzling part. Country roads. We have a 100-mile loop in our favorite remote county in Washington, and the E55 totally erased the ripples and bumps that almost always find imperfections in other cars' suspensions. And the faster the car travels, the better the suspension works. It hits a dip and takes a set. And around corners, the E55 hugs the road so well you simply have to give up any notion of challenge, and back off when reason prevails. Given the racing quality of the brakes, it shouldn't need to be said that they work. And like a racing car, the feel to the pedal is firm. The suspension geometry helps prevent front-end dive during braking. There is also Brake Assist, another mind-reading computer function which takes over brake boost based on how aggressively you hit the brakes. The computer says, You want panic? You got it. Next Page