This week, in partnership with Mercedes-Benz, we take a ride in Jonathan Hodgman’s 1987 Mercedes-Benz AMG Hammer wagon along the lakeside roads just outside of Atlanta, Georgia.
While today the AMG badge is an acronym known and revered for upscale German precision and performance, there was a time not too long ago when the cars of Aufrecht, Melcher, and Großaspach were produced independently, without official Mercedes oversight, as Mercedes didn’t officially absorb AMG as its in-house performance division until 1999. Though they may have more budget and a wider range of cars now, the AMG autos made before the merger were no less impressive machines. Far from it.
More than a decade before the merger, in 1986, AMG began offering V8 engine upgrades for the W124 chassis—one of Mercedes’s most beloved mid-size sedans. Thanks to its understated but well-proportioned looks, excellent ergonomics, comfort, and solid out-of-the-box performance, the W124’s overall package was a competent one from the factory, but as we all know, everything can be improved. These traits made the vault-solid E-Class of the ‘80s an exceptional base to build upon, sure, but it was a wholly different car after AMG worked their magic, adding to the its capabilities by massaging nearly every aspect of the already exceptional platform.
These V8-swapped W124s were designated as Hammers after some clever journalist coined the term when reviewing the Autobahn rocket, so it’s safe to say the AMG earned its name from the big bad V8s (which would include the 360-horsepower 5.6-liter V8 that made it the fastest sedan in the world at the time), but it wasn’t just the big tuned mill squeezed under hood that made the car such a success; AMG also reworked the transmission, suspension, brakes, and added an aero kit along with their equally blocky 17-inch three-piece wheels. It was the full package.
And by 1987, AMG raised the performance bar once again with an even crazier 375-horsepo
