Rocket 1000 is the most powerful Brabus ever

Who would have imagined back in the 2000s – when we were watching 700-odd horsepower Brabus SV12s bobbing around on their air suspension during a popular Sunday night television programme – that the Brabus to eventually break the 1,000PS barrier would be a hybrid. Yes, the Rocket 1000 is based on the GT63 S E Performance.

Fear not, though. This isn’t an exercise in enlarging batteries and electric motors. The hybrid bits, which contribute just over 200PS to proceedings, go untouched. The 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 on the other hand, gets a thorough workover.

We say thorough, because sometimes getting big power from these twin-turbo AMG V8s is the matter of a remap, or on occasion, a set of bigger turbos. But for the Rocket 1000 Brabus has gone deep, with a bump from 4.0-litres to 4.5-litres thanks to new pistons, rods and crank hardware. Italy gets new turbochargers, a totally new exhaust and an additional engine control unit.

The results are properly titanic. Aside from the headline figure, this thing is capable of delivering a total of 1,820Nm but torque is limited to 1,620Nm (1,195lb ft) to save the transmission. That limitation is purely engine-based, with the mill itself pegged back to 1,050Nm (774lb ft). 

All hooked up, the Brabus Rocket 1000 is good for 0-62mph in 2.6 seconds and perhaps more impressively, 0-124mph in 9.7 seconds. It won’t quite pop the double-tonne, being limited to 196mph.

Of course as is always the way with Brabus these days, suspicions around the potency within begin when you look at the thing. It’s wider, more aggressive, with a ground-hugging chin spoiler and a wing at the back. 

The Rocket 1000 is destined to be a rare beast. Brabus intends on building just 25 examples.