Car lovers of a certain age mark time in two epochs: Before the AMG Hammer and after they'd read about it in Road and Driver, Car and Key, Dynamite, Modern Maturity or Tops in the Bronx. It seemed everyone was talking about the Hammer back then.
In this petit episode of Chris Harris on Cars, Harris samples a factory-preserved W124 Hammer on a rainy day near the AMG headquarters near Affalterbach, Germany.
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Sure, a 360-hp German coupe with automatic transmission and a top speed of no more than 187 mph seems sort of quaint these days. But as hero cars of 1986 go, the Hammer loomed massive in oil-sniffers' collective consciousness.
But what's it like to drive? Let's find out.