Sleeper sedans started creeping into our consciousness somewhere around the '80s. It was a strange time for these cars to take off, what with this decade being known for excess, with shoulder pads being the only thing of the era that were bigger than cell phones. While stockbrokers bought Lamborhinis on their lunch breaks, car styling was becoming more and more outlandish, epitomized by the Ferrari Testarossa, which arrived looking like it had beard trimmers embedded into the doors.But in the face of all of this bravado, sleepers offered the thrills of a fast car, just without being noticed. In Germany, a cottage industry was starting up, where tuners were offering to take the engine out of a conservatively styled Mercedes and drop in a unit better suited to a supercar. The AMG Hammer had changed what most people thought was possible with a Mercedes W124, turning the wick up to 375 horsepower in the mid '80s, and offering speed more commonly associated with Italian exotica.By the mid-'90s, one company in Bottrop, a city in the Ruhr industrial region of west-central Germany, decided it could go one better. The result was a four-door Mercedes that had more power than a Ferrari F40, and even faster. It wasn't just the fastest car with four doors, it was one of the fastest cars full stop. The W210 Brabus E V12 Was The World's Fastest Sedan Of The '90s BrabusLong before building feisty Smart cars, Brabus was known for combining Mercedes-Benz performance tuning with bespoke luxury interiors. By the 1980s and ’90s, the company had gained global notoriety for its extreme Mercedes builds. A 7.3-Liter V12 Executive Sleeper Sedan In 1996, Brabus wanted to change the game when it came to sleepers. The company set out to create a car that wouldn't just be hanging on to supercars on the autobahn; it would be overtaking them. Using the latest W210 E-Class as its base, the company fitted the new mid-sized sedan with the 7.3S V12 engine producing 582 horsepower and 569 lb-ft of torque, thus creating the craziest four-door production car the world had ever seen.The new E V12 accelerated to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds to 60 mph, but the real eye-opener wasn't its acceleration – it was the top speed. The W210 E V12 would top out at 205 mph, but get this: that's ELECTRONICALLY LIMITED. The car would have gone even faster still if someone could have made tires for it. The New E V12 Was Now Up There With Some Seriously Fast Supercars BrabusThis E V12 would go even faster if it hadn't been for the fact that no tires were available at the time that could support such a heavy vehicle at such speeds. Suffice to say, the E V12 broke the Guinness World Record for fastest street-legal sedan. It was also quicker than a Ferrari F50, which would do 202 mph. Oh, and by the way, the E V12 will also hit 125 mph in 16 seconds. Brabus had to extensively modify the engine bay, as well as rework many of the mechanicals of the E-Class just to make the conversion work. There are no official prices for the car when new, but rumors suggest that it cost 457,700 DM (Deutsche Mark), or roughly $275,000. Brabus Also Made A Wagon Version Of The E V12 There are no exact figures for the number of E V12s that Brabus created for 1996, but non-official figures suggest that it would be between 10 and 15 cars. The car was tested against a Ferrari F40, which was in the early '90s at least, seen as the pinnacle of hypercars. But that seems a bit unfair, as the F40 only has a top speed of 201 mph. Brabus also followed the sedan version of the EV 12 with a wagon.In 1997, Brabus built a heavily modified black S210 series Mercedes-Benz E-Class station wagon named the Brabus T V12. This load-lugger was fitted with the same 7.3S V12 engine producing 582 horsepower and 772 Nm of torque. For top speed, it was fitted with a long axle ratio, but could still reach 60 mph in less than 4.9 seconds. Top speed was 199 mph, making the T V12 the fastest street-legal station wagon in the world at the time. Brabus Originally Gave A W124 Mercedes The V12 Treatment Brabus In the '90s, the company launched the Brabus 6.9, based on the R129 Mercedes 600 SL, fitted with, as the name suggests, a 6.9-liter Brabus V12 engine producing around over 509 hp horsepower and 520 lb-ft of torque. But while this crazy mill seemed well-suited to a drop-top sports car, Brabus realized it could be used to even more dramatic effect in a sedan. That's when the E V12 arrived. This car was based on the E500 version of the W124 series Mercedes-Benz. Yes, that E500 (or 500 E) that was co-developed and hand-built by Porsche.But Brabus decided to ditch the M119 five-liter V8 four-valve engine from the 500 SL, and fit it with its own 6.9-liter V12. The company also offered bored-out versions of the M119 unit, taking displacement up to 6.0 and 6.5 liters. Brabus even went as far as creating a V12 7.3-liter version of the E500 for customers too. The E V12 W124 Almost Doubled The Horsepower Of The E500 On Which It Was Based With the 6.9-liter E V12 now fitted with an engine that had almost two liters more displacement than the E 500 on which it was based, the four-door Merc now had some serious firepower. The E500's power output was raised from 322 horsepower to a mighty 509 horsepower, plus a peak torque of 520 lb-ft of torque at 3,700 rpm. The V12 W124 sprints to 60 mph in around 4.5 seconds, so less than a second off the F40's 3.8 seconds. The Brabus's top speed is a jaw-dropping 178 mph, making it the world's fastest sedan of the time. BRABUS Created Another E V12 Record Breaker In The 2000s BrabusBased on the W211 series Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the third E V12 arrived in 2003, this time with a twin-turbocharged 6.3-liter Brabus V12 engine. Power was up again to 640 horsepower and torque levels now sat at 757 lb-ft. This was enough to propel the E-Class to 60 mph in around 4.4 seconds, but that wasn't its real party piece. People didn't buy the E V12 just to go drag racing — they bought it because they wanted to embarrass supercars on a quiet stretch of the autobahn (probably). In 2005, this low-key sleeper Merc also got a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s fastest sedan after hitting more than 217 mph at the Nardo high-speed track in Italy. A Brabus E V12 Is Still The Fastest Sedan, Even In 2025 Brabus Brabus wasn't finished with its Mercedes-based super sedans, wheeling out the fourth-generation EV12 in September 2009. This time, it wasn't so much a sleeper as looking like Batman's daily driver. This car is covered in aerodynamic aids, including covers over the rear wheels, for an ultra slippery drag coefficient of just 0.27. Under the hood is the company's 6.3 R V12 engine producing 800 hp and 811 lb-ft of torque. This car hits 60 mph in 3.6 seconds, reaches 125 mph in a mind-bending 9.9 seconds, and ticks off 186 mph in 23.9 seconds. The calculated top speed is 230 mph. This all meant that this Brabus E V12 was fast enough to hold on to the record of fastest sedan for the past 15 years. That record still stands.Source: Brabus.com