The E55 is tempting because of its power and teutonic-ness. Its German history would stop me cold. These cars are usually too expensive to maintain in their latter years. They maintain their looks gracefully but it's only skin deep. Unless you have an expense account or savings for maintenance, stay away from Benzes.

 

Why not go with a GS450h? Lets do a comparo:
The GS450h is better equipped, more reliable, more practical, and IMHO a better looking car. The 0-60 in the GS450h is 5.2 seconds but where the GS450h really shines is top end acceleration (50-130 mph). I own a GS450h and have beaten cars that claim high 4 second 0-60 times from a roll. So go buy yourself a GS450h and you won't be sorry. You'll also get about double the fuel economy of an E55 and you won't have to waste money fixing it all the time.

 

the e55 will still likely dust the 450h in high speed pull.

 

AMG all the way.

 

Of course it will, I'd expect it to. But you'll average 15-17 MPG's in the AMG and around 26-29 MPG's in the Lexus. Overall the GS-h is a more complete car than the AMG.

 

that's your opinion though. to me, those who look for ultimate performance, gas price / mileage is probably very low on their priority list. when i got my m3 i didn't care about gas consumption at all. same with my friends with m5, e55/63.

but at the same time when it's a used car, the target audience could change because of the price

 

yeah gas mileage.. i dont really care too much about unless im only getting 7mpg, but the one thing I dont like about the 450h is the constant whine of the cvt.. dont get me wrong its cool.. but i need to hear or know my car is shifting

 

i thought over time you'd get used to it. when driving with cvt (gsh and rxh), that's the first thing i noticed, the cvt whine.

well, with the e55, depends on how you drive, 7mpg is "doable", haha... it's not as bad as the m5 and e63 though