A diesel I long to own

I've never owned a diesel car. I'm not anti-black-pump, it's just never happened. I rarely make car purchases via a planned route. Not to sound overly romantic about it, but I "let the car find me"

A diesel has never been in the right place at the right time. I occasionally search for first-gen Fabia VRs or muscular six-cylinder BMW oil-burners. When it comes to actually buying however, there's usually something petrol-powered that tickles my fancy more.

I don't do mega-miles regularly, a car is a luxury rather than a necessity, so economy has never really factored. With the war on the combustion engine appearing to strengthen by the day, diesel will be first in the firing-line, so I might go my entire motoring-life without warming my glow-plugs.

Saying all that, there are some diesels that, if the stars aligned correctly, I would have to pull the trigger on. The one I wish to speak about now, is a rare commodity, so the astronomical Gods will have to be hard at work.

AMG. What's the first thing that jumps to mind? I would be confident in saying most people, myself included, immediately think lairy V8. Petrol V8. Although that's not been exclusively the AMG remit, it's certainly what their famed for.

The infamous M156 petrol V8

There have been a few six-pots and now their making everyone rethink what a four-cylinder engine is capable of in the A45. A diesel though? Yes, they did do one.

I give you the C30 CDI AMG. The one and only diesel powered car from Affalterbach, launched in 2002.

For the next decade, diesel was to have it's unenviable day in the sun, before some misgivings were publicised, but we won't get into that debacle here.

While diesel went on to dominate the mass-market for daily drivers, manufacturers attempted to make diesel cool with enthusiasts by creating sporting variants. The Skoda VRs range noted above, VW and Audi tried out a few "hot" diesel SUVs and even Peugeot attempted a warm-diesel hatch.

VW went the SUV route for performance diesel

Mercedes wanted in on the game and went to AMG to fulfill the brief. AMG took the five-cylinder diesel from the C270 CDI and went to town on it. A longer stroke brought displacement to 3.0 litres (hence the C30 name), larger, beefier turbo charger and intercooler were fitted and long story short, the engine jumped from 168bhp to 228.

This is diesel though, so where the real impressive numbers come in, is torque. With the AMG improvements, the CDI went from 295lbs/ft to a mighty 398 available from 2000rpm.

More impressive is that gave the C30 22lbs/ft more than the C55 AMG, with it's petrol V8 and available much earlier in the rev range.

As appealing as it sounds, people didn't care about economy in the early millennium. Global economies were strong and oil was relatively cheap. While the V8 AMG sold in healthy numbers, the C30 didn't, making them hard to find, especially in RHD.

So much so, I can't find one currently for sale. So to Germany and the steering-wheel on the wrong side. The C30 was available in all body-styles, saloon, estate and coupe. It's an estate I want and it seemed to be the popular choice in period (all things being relative).

This one, although not perfect, seems like the pick of a small bunch. Strangely, I would have to put all the badges back on this car. If it were a petrol car, I'd want full stealth spec, but the obscurity factor of this, well I want to shout about it.

Obviously I'm not going to import a left-hand-drive car from Germany, but If a RHD one shows it's head, I would be very tempted.

I don't need it, it would break my heart and probably be outlawed in the not too distant future, but due to it's uniqueness, I want, irrationally, but I do!