Ach du Lieber! ; Latest AMG sedan puts the hammer down, but gently.

They're almost paranoid, these AMG guys, borderline angst-ridden about comparisons between their fast, new C32 and the mighty BMW M3. They bring it up before we can, even if we had no intention of mentioning it in the first place.

``Sure, the M3 is fast, but would you want to have to drive it every day, in traffic, with stoplights and stop-and-go city driving?''

Sure we would, but we weren't necessarily going to compare the two. At least that wasn't the first thing that came to mind after driving this sedan. See, Mercedes-Benz cars, even the fast, tight, very fun AMG Mercedes-Benz cars, have a fundamentally unique character, separate from BMW M products and even Audi S cars. To tell the truth, it hadn't occurred to us to compare the C32 with anything after a day of flogging it up, over and around the narrow, twisting two- and one-lane roads near the Estoril F1 track in Portugal. We were just enjoying the quick shifting five-speed automatic AMG rightly calls SPEEDSHIFT (their caps); the 349 hp and 332 lb-ft of torque in the supercharged V6 that just about spank the 3400-pound luxo-screamer down the road; and the tightly bound but still comfortable AMG suspension.

Eventually the comparisons would have come up, of course: Comparos are fodder for many car magazines. But at first blush our minds were fixed to AMG and what a brilliantly fast four-door it has here. It's hard to think of anything else when you snuggle into the C32 and launch.

``Wow,'' was our first thought, zipping down the Lisbon-Estoril highway.

The first time a hole opened up in traffic we hesitated-then we figured there likely is no point-reciprocity between California and Portugal. So we stomped on that sucker, the Speedshift gearbox (we won't capitalize anymore) very quickly downshifted from fifth to third-and zoom, we launched.

The 3.2-liter V6 has one of the widest sweet spots in the world, even by performance-sedan standards. Ninety percent of its torque is available from 2300 rpm, and torque doesn't drop below that 90 percent figure until the engine passes 6100 revs, just shy of its 6220-rpm redline. The 332 lb-ft torque peak comes at 4400 rpm. For comparison's sake, it peaks seven lb-ft shy of the 5.0-liter V8s found in the S-, CL- and SL-Class cars. The thing to remember: The C32 is much, much lighter.