Forgive me a little mansplaining here, but I was recently taken to task because “not everyone has had the education you’ve had, Kim” — leveled at me because I was talking about something that I just assumed everyone already knew, but in this particular case, not.
Anyway, the “Q-ship” concept came from the First World War, when, in an effort to combat the U-boat menace, the Royal Navy took ordinary merchant steamers, and added droppable shields to the desks — “droppable” in that when a U-boat would surface to sink the helpless merchant ship (which is what they often did), the prospective victim would lower the shields to reveal a nasty-looking gun which could easily sink said U-boat, and often did.
So put plainly, the Q-ship concept is to disguise power in an apparently-innocuous outer packaging. Like in this case:
Now that’s a 1993 Mercedes E-class car, done in Standard Boring Mercedes Trim & Shape. So why would this one, in particular, be on sale for just under $240,000?
Because it’s no ordinary Merc E-class; it’s an E500, which has under its hood a growling monster 6.0-liter AMG V8, putting out 369hp. (I know, that’s small potatoes compared to today’s behemoth engines, but back in the 90s it rivaled Ferraris.)
As I recall, Mercedes only ever made a couple hundred or so of these beasts, so the scarcity no doubt contributes to the price.
I once knew a guy who loved cars that looked unassuming, but were hidden dragons, simply because they didn’t attract the attention of Los Federales in the same way that his rosso Ferrari Testarossa did.
I have to say that if I were in the market for a powerful car and had a spare quarter-million to drop on it, I’d want it to look just a leetle more impressive than something that looks like a banker would drive. This Maserati MC20 comes to mind… and they cost a lot less than the E500.
I guess I could have just called it a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and saved myself the tiresome mansplain at the beginning, but that only occurred to me after I’d written the thing.
Besides, I think “Q-ship” fits this E500 better than “wolf”, anyway.
Kim,
Here in The States we have a term for this .. sleeper. Sleepers don’t look like much on the outside, but under the skin they are mean, nasty, angry fire-belching monsters. Perfect example would be retrofitting the Ford coyote engine with a sturdy 5-speed manual gearbox, and stuffing that power train into a late model Crown Vic or equivalent Lincoln. For the record, I have a liking for sleepers.
– Brad in IL, aka Ima Jewish Deplorable
I’d be happy with that Merc or any sleeper. I think it was the recent iteration of the Dodge Charger or some other car that was slightly stylish but had a deceptively powerful engine in it. I liked it over the flashier corvette. And the Ford Mustang. the idiots have snuck into the design department again and emasculated that car.
A 69 Dodge Dart with a ‘Custom Six’ badge on the front fender indicating the engine was a 225 slant 6. Under the hood was a 340 V8 with appropriate transmission. A high school friend (the one with well-off parents) had one.
As others have said, here in the States it is called a sleeper. ’65 Dodge Coronet, clean, no badges, 440 magnum transplanted under the hood, 4 speed manual. Thing looked like something your grandmother would drive but had 400 hp on tap and would easily hit 120+ mph in third gear, then shift into 4th and bury that speedometer. And had cold A/C to boot. Classy.
Reminds me of a story I read in “Car and Driver” or some such magazine, circa mid-70’s. As best I can recall, the German firm Alpina dropped a Volkswagen Rabbit body onto a Porsche 928 chassis. Body required a bit of tweaking. Again IIRC, only the door panels were still original. The only things obvious at a casual glance were the over size tires and exhaust. As one can imagine, they had great fun blowing the doors off unsuspecting drivers on the autobahn.
The running joke–
“What happened to Herr Schmidt?”
Well, that Rabbit went by so fast, he thought there must be something wrong with his Mercedes, so he stepped out to see what the problem was”.
This made me recall an article I read in Car & Driver magazine back in the 70’s? This guy had a business that supplied cars for Hollywood movie stunt scenes, you know the bombed car, the multi rollover car in all those chase scenes, etc. He had a ’57 Cadillac Biarritz that had been burned in a fire scene, and made a resto project out of it.
He did a full cosmetic restoration on the body and interior and mounted it on a NASCAR Grand National chassis, wheels and tires, installed a built Chevy 454 twin turbo engine that pegged the dyno needle at 750 HP, fueled with propane to meet California emission standards of the day, and installed a working A/C out of some other type of car. It looked like a stock, fully restored Biarritz, a gorgeous car, until you noticed the fat tires and wheels. He used the sleeper car to shame Ferraris and Porches in the canyon roads outside LA.
The Biarritz gas filler was behind a fold down rear license plate, but a propane tank with its own filler in the trunk had replaced the gas tank, so our guy found a new use for that feature. He hated tailgaters with high beams. He installed a cylinder to fold down the plate, and mounted an aircraft landing light behind it in place of the gas tank filler pipe, all activated by a toggle switch on the dash. He said the million candlepower light melted tailgaters’ windshields.
BTW, his license plate was 1FASTMF.
My boss had a gray market E-50. Once he got the US required catalectic converters off that was one fine running car. That V-8 screamed when pushed.
I had a ’71 Ford Mustang that did a fairly good impression of a “sleeper”. The markings and stripes were removed and replaced with a hand rubbed Black Lacquer paint job. I declined to remove the small wing mounted on the trunk lid, as a lot of Mustangs had that option on that body vintage. I also left the twin hood “scoops” alone, as those were a common accent, but mine were actual functioning vacuum actuated intakes feeding the ram-air system.
The final sleeper touch was the (factory!) automatic transmission. It was incredibly quick on the street. The idle was barely noticed by onlookers, yet it still breathed well enough to show about 515hp on the dyno. The drive train was a 429 (7 Liters) Super Cobra Jet, with a 4.11 rear with a Detroit Locker. (drives both axles together)
Carb, intake, and headers would bring it up to 700+hp, I was told.
Best head design Ford ever produced for their big v8’s. Apparently they would bolt on to some of the other big Ford engines. Highly coveted.