Mercedes-Benz doesn’t just make fancy luxury cars — they’re usually genuinely powerful, well-crafted vehicles. These are the fastest ones Mercedes has made.
Mercedes-Benz cars often symbolize the glamour and prestige of the high-class automotive segment, thanks to their supremely luxurious interiors and trend-setting tech. The Stuttgart-based behemoth often makes new models or boosts some of its already great cars with boundary-pushing performance to add excitement and improve high-level speed. Decades ago, the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Super Sport became the fastest Mercedes-Benz car after debuting with improved performance over the standard Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR.
Before the Super Sport’s arrival, the CLK GTR reigned supreme as the fastest Mercedes-Benz model ever made, with a top speed of 214 mph — impressive even by contemporary standards. However, the Super Sport model was built to a higher standard, and as a result, could reach speeds up to 231 mph. That’s still the highest echelon of fast Mercedes-Benz cars, but there are other three-pointed star-bearing models that are also worthy of profound respect. Below, we’ve identified five of the fastest Mercedes-Benz models by top speed.Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Super Sport — 231 MPH
When the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR first arrived on the scene, it was to participate in the initial FIA GT Championship series in 1997, which it did against the likes of the McLaren F1 GTR and Porsche 911 GT1. It successfully won twice on the bounce (in 1997 and 1998), but because Mercedes-Benz still had to satisfy the 25 car homologation requirement for participating in the championship, it built 28 road-going versions of the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR GT1 (two of which were prototypes), with construction handled by then-partner AMG and HWA Engineering. By late 1998, the road-legal CLK GTR was ready in all its glory, sporting a naturally aspirated 60-degree, 6.9-liter V12 under its hood.
The engine was based on the M120 and featured aluminum block and cylinder heads, forged pistons, titanium con rods, a Bosch-supplied multipoint fuel-injection system, a dry-sump lubrication system, as well as a carbon fiber oil tank. The result was a powertrain robust enough to handle an ECE-certified 603 hp and 572 lb-ft of torque, with that output allowing a 0-62 mph time of around 3.8 seconds and a top speed of 214 mph. The CLK GTR Super Sport was more frenetic, thanks to a stroked 7.3-liter version of the V12 engine, uprated to produce 711 hp and 580 lb-ft of torque.
