Mercedes-Benz Kleemann E50KCC

The E50KCC at a glance

Who Kleemann is

Kleemann is a small Danish company from Farum, near Copenhagen, that specialises in Mercedes-Benz engines. A 2005 report in the Danish engineering weekly Ingeniøren dated its founding to 1994 and described a firm of about 25 people. Its core products were superchargers, camshafts, exhausts and software for Mercedes V8s, plus body kits, wheels and suspension parts.

The same year Kleemann announced plans to design more of its cars itself, from about 20 % to 80 % of each conversion, and to build a Mercedes-based supercar. The E50KCC belongs to this period: a complete car rather than a parts package. Germany's best-known Mercedes tuner, with a much longer history, is described in our page on Brabus.

The base car: E500 4Matic estate

The S211 E-Class estate was built from February 2002 to June 2009. In its first form the E500 used the M113 V8 of 5.0 litres with 306 PS (225 kW) at 5,600 rpm and 460 Nm at 2,700 rpm. The 4Matic all-wheel-drive version, assembled for Mercedes by Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria, came with a five-speed automatic gearbox, and Airmatic air suspension with adaptive damping was standard on the V8.

That combination made the E500 4Matic estate a good starting point: it already had a strong engine, permanent all-wheel drive and self-levelling air springs. Readers who want the full E-Class story can turn to our Mercedes-Benz E-Class overview.

Engine: supercharged 5.0-litre V8

Kleemann's power package turned the naturally aspirated M113 into a supercharged engine. The kit included the compressor, tubular exhaust manifolds, "Super Sport" camshafts and reprogrammed engine electronics. The quoted output was 595 hp at 5,800 rpm and 770 Nm at 2,000 rpm. The old version of this page gave the power peak as 800 rpm, which is a typing error.

By our calculation the conversion almost doubled the power, an extra 215 kW over the factory car, and added two-thirds more torque, delivered lower in the rev range. The figures convert easily with our power converter. The same power package was also offered for the V6 estates, the E240 and E320.

How the car was raised by 50 mm

The interesting engineering is in the height. Kleemann did not simply fit longer springs. The body was lifted 30 mm on spacers relative to the suspension and drivetrain, so the engine, gearbox and axles stayed in their original positions and the drive-shaft angles did not change. A further 20 mm of ground clearance came from the new wheel and tyre package, for 50 mm in total.

Because the heavy mechanical parts stayed low, Kleemann said the centre of gravity remained nearly as low as on the standard car. The Airmatic air suspension worked as normal, so the driver could still use its height settings.

Body, wheels and brakes

The visual changes told the cross-country story. New front and rear aprons carried stainless-steel underbody protection, and the front bumper got large mesh-covered air intakes and integrated fog lamps. Side skirts with chrome inserts, wide wheel-arch flares and polished aluminium roof rails completed the look, together with Kleemann's trapezoid exhaust tips.

The wheels were 18 × 8.5-inch alloys with 255/45 ZR18 Toyo Proxes tyres. Kleemann chose this relatively modest size for comfort on poor roads and to leave room for its KB4 high-performance brake system. Inside, the standard E-Class cabin stayed largely unchanged; the speedometer of the cars photographed read to 260 km/h, matching the limited top speed of 250 km/h.

Performance and what it means

Kleemann quoted 0–100 km/h in under five seconds, and evo reported 0–62 mph in less than 5.0 seconds. For a large all-wheel-drive estate, that put it in sports-car territory in 2005. Top speed was limited electronically to 250 km/h.

Mercedes itself raised the E500's output later: after the 2006 facelift the E500 got a 5.5-litre V8 (M273) with 387 PS (285 kW). Even that factory engine was about 155 kW short of the Kleemann figure. By our calculation the factory update brought 27 % more power, while Kleemann's kit brought about 95 % more. The specific output tells the same story: about 89 kW per litre for the E50KCC against 45 kW per litre for the standard 5.0. With our power-to-weight calculator you can see where such a car sits against modern performance estates.