What if I told you there’s a BRABUS that costs around half a million quid and has a top speed of just under 70mph?
Not impressed? Well, what if I told you that same BRABUS can sleep four in comfort, comes with more high-tech gadgets than your average Bond villain’s lair, and will propel you, your family and your friends around any river or sea in the world with enough style to turn the head of every supercar and SUV driver green with envy?
If that’s got your attention, then you’re no doubt already familiar with BRABUS, the Bottrop, Germany-based sportwagenhersteller which, since 1977, has been turning Mercedes-Benz models (most notably their sexily sturdy G-Class SUVs) – as well as Maybach, Porsche, Rolls-Royce and even Smart cars – into things of awe-inspiring performance and covetability.
What you may not know is that BRABUS has, for the last seven years, also been applying that same Teutonic know-how, or fachwissen, to Finnish company Axopar’s range of ruggedly handsome superboats.
BRABUS take these already highly capable craft – often referred to as the ‘Swiss Army knives of the ocean’ – and, just as they do to the cars with the three-pointed stars, ‘Brabus-izes’ them: power output is increased; key components are refined, enhanced and upgraded; interiors are elevated to even higher levels of luxury and fitted with bespoke levels of customisation – think F1 style carbon-fibre and titanium trims, professional quality marinised audio systems, and signature quilted leather upholstery as found on BRABUS conversions of Mercedes AMG cars.
The BRABUS Shadow range of boats comprises models ranging in hull size from 25 feet (rap star Vanilla Ice uses a 28-foot one to go fishing in Florida) right up to 45 feet. The mid-range BRABUS Shadow 900 XC Cross Cabin, which I spent the day getting to know down at BRABUS Marine London Group’s dealership and dry-dock in Poole Harbour, comes fitted with twin Mercury 4.6L V8 R racing-tuned engines providing a combined output of 900hp and a top speed of around 55 knots (equivalent to 63 mph on land). In a 37-foot luxury pleasure craft, that’s blisteringly fast.
A dedicated race boat might give you a few extra knots on the top end but try catching, cooking and serving fresh tuna steak to a dinner party of 12 people all seated or sunbathing comfortably about the walk-around deck, like you can on the BRABUS.
The ‘Wet Bar Package’, which is available as an option on the Shadow, includes an integrated electric grill, wash-hand basin, a top-loading fridge and a multi-use smart storage compartment on the aft deck for storing whatever kind of on-water sports and adventure gear you and your family could ever need. And, once the boat is safely moored up, throw a party on board for 20 of the new best friends which ownership of a boat like this inevitably attracts.
The Shadow’s class-leading performance and agility is mainly down to its power-to-weight ratio combined with the superlative hydrodynamics that have been achieved by leading naval architects. This superboat (a class of vessel that BRABUS pioneered) is endowed with a unique axe-bow design – featuring a 20 degree V-shaped “Sharp Entry Hull” – that, according to BRABUS Marine London Group’s brand manager, Steve Handy, “makes it carve through the sea like nothing else on water”.
As we stand and admire the Shadow’s almost intimidatingly-alluring lines – the boat possesses a predatory beauty and purposefulness that renders it somehow shark-like – he explains how the hull’s twin steps and aggressively-angled ‘chine’ (the angle where the bottom meets the side) give it both stability and lift, or as Steve puts it: “air lubrication”.
The boating community seems to agree. Given a Motor Boat Award for its confident, user-friendly and stylish performance, the Shadow garnered praise from the awarding judges who acclaimed its: “year-round fast cruising capability [which] reflects exactly what the BRABUS road cars are designed for. From the way it demolishes the chop and swell to the admiring glances it draws from fellow boaters and those on the quayside, this is a boat that makes you feel special.”
The quality I’m actually most impressed with is how easy the boat is to operate and manoeuvre, even for landlubbing newbies like me.
Performance is nothing without control – and the Shadow’s joystick piloting helm control system, along with its ‘Skyhook’ digital anchor and autopilot systems, means that this seagoing BRABUS is almost as easy to park, or rather moor, as its four-wheeled kin.
In fact, I’m surprised to learn that, unlike a motorcar, this veritable beast of a boat actually requires no licence to ‘drive’ at all. On the other hand, obtaining insurance for your shiny (and rather valuable) new toy may prove difficult without any form of training whatsoever.
Luckily, Steve assures me that BRABUS Marine London Group can get you ship-shape with a basic skipper’s licence over the course of a pleasant couple of weekends down in Poole. They also have a pre- and after-sales support office in Davies Street W1, but the opportunities for learning to handle a 37-foot superboat in the middle of Mayfair are somewhat more limited.
The Shadow I’m aboard down here by the Solent comes in what BRABUS describes as ‘Stealth Green’ – although it is also available in other covert-sounding hues such as ‘Midnight Blue’ and ‘Phantom Grey’.
These intricate paint finishes, which take six weeks to apply, and feature striking geometrical patterns along with subtle but unmistakable BRABUS branding, are in stark contrast to the bland white gel coatings applied to the far less noticeable (in contrast) boats moored alongside.
None of these colourways, however, appeal to my inner Jason Bourne quite as much as the BRABUS 900 Black Ops Signature Edition. With its ‘Graphite Black’ paint job and matching graphics – which I wouldn’t be surprised to learn are somehow magically radar-repellent – it looks like the ideal vessel on which to gather a bunch of ex-Special Forces type friends and launch a secret coup d’etat on a small island nation. Or, failing that a glamorous, black-tie cocktail party in St Tropez.
“The customisation possibilities are endless,” Steve tells me, before revealing how a City-based customer recently ordered a Shadow 900 to match the bespoke paintwork of his car.
“A Brabus?” I ask.
“No, a Lamborghini,” he replies, “but I think he’ll be upgrading to one soon so it exactly matches the boat in terms of marque as well as colour.”
I’d take it any way it comes, to be fair. BRABUS works on what it calls a “one-second-wow” factor – meaning you either fall in love with it instantly or you don’t like it at all, in much the same way as a BRABUS G-Class isn’t everybody’s first choice in SUVs, even if they could afford one.
But for those who appreciate the agility, capability, comfort and performance that are the hallmarks of this magnificent powerhouse of a boat – and for those with the means to acquire one of the fewer than 100 produced each year – this is really the definitive luxury SUV of the sea.
BRABUS Marine London Group has a 2023 BRABUS Shadow 900 XC Cross Cabin Signature Edition for sale in Stealth Green at £494,148.47 excl. VAT. For more info, visit brabusmarinelondongroup.com
