Mercedes-Benz AMG C63 review

C63s of old were instant, irresistible charmers. In a nutshell, this one isn’t. There’s simply too much going on for this car to slap a grin straight on your face. Which isn’t to say it’s dull. Far from it. With nearly 700bhp this is still undoubtedly a quick car that shuffles along with a real effervescence, not least because finer-tuned bums will sense the power shifting dynamically around the wheels as it does so. That goes hand-in-hand with the extra incisiveness of the rear-wheel steer, which is a constant presence in tighter turns.

And what does two tonnes plus do to the braking?

While that all does an admirable job of chamfering off the edges of the C63’s bulk in the middle of corners, there’s no escaping it under hard braking. For all AMG’s talk of clever track apps and boost strategies, this isn’t truly the car to buy if you’re looking to improve your sector times at the local track evening. The brake pedal is hardly imbued with much feel anyway – you can likely thank four levels of regen for that – but it goes even softer after a handful of hard stops.

You’ll even find yourself managing the brakes a touch on road, which isn’t something we’d usually associate with a car in this relatively compact class. AMG’s engineers tacitly admit this car’s hefty; echoing M Division, it doesn’t seem to mind bulk when it has so much tech to dim its effect in corners. But we suspect even the casual observer will notice here.

Is it quick?

On track, this never truly feels a 671bhp car, its extra mass over the current M3 immediately soaking up the extra power. But it’s still a swift old thing on road, particularly when you accelerate out of villages and into national speed limit, the instant hit of torque from the 202bhp/236lb ft motor giving a notable shove in the back when you’re not worrying about laptime strategies.

It also leads to a pretty lively back end; oversteer has always been easily won in a C63, and nothing changes here. It’s just corrected far sooner with the front axle helping pull you straight. You’ll more actively seek this kind of balance from the car, too; drive it in a more binary manner and you’ll find the sort of understeer a two-tonne car can’t help but succumb to at ambitious cornering speeds.

On the road in the UK, when you're rarely going flat out and being much less binary with your inputs, we found the C63's power delivery to be frustratingly unpredictable. The C63’s diff-housed motor allows it to do clever weight-concealing things like torque-vectoring, but to keep it hauling it uses a Taycan-style two-speed transmission.

There’s a noticeable ‘step’ as the motor momentarily pauses and then re-engages. It’s more obvious if you get into the throttle, then lift, then go again: like when you’re timing an overtake or choosing your moment on a sliproad. Sometimes you have 671bhp. Sometimes you don’t. It feels un-synchronised.

Is it comfy enough?

The old C63 always rode firmly, and we endured it for the magic that lay beyond. There’s a broader range of options from this new car’s adaptive damping system – with components descended from the AMG GT Black Series, and thus the GT3 paddock – but more undulating roads reveal its softest Comfort setting to feel rather languid, while Sport punts you right back to the old car’s level of stiffness. But over crests the car feels lumpen, as it struggles to control its huge mass.

There’s plenty that sparkles too, mind. The nine-speed paddleshift auto is snappy and its short ratios bring some real brio to Manual mode. The four-cylinder engine sounds plain at low revs but really sharpens in timbre the harder you work it.

Tell me more about the noise.

The engine’s lost the fizz and fury that’s so endearingly wild in the savage A45, but gained an almost supercharger-esque shriek from the electric turbo. Get into the throttle from low revs with the radio off and listen out for it. A wicked, hypersonic whine, like nothing you’ve heard in a German saloon before. Fascinating. If you never sampled the old V8. Like with so much of the C63, you’ve got to really buy into the concept.

You’re best turning the more dynamic sound mode off, though, as it brings an amusing but ultimately distracting warble to electric-only driving. Incidentally, it’s rather satisfying toddling through town in near-silence and the car defaults to starting in Electric to save blushes around your neighbours.