Mercedes-AMG C 63 S review, test drive

We get behind the wheel of the AMG-treated, high-performance version of a standard C-class, the C 63 S.

Published on Mar 02, 2015 12:28:00 PM

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What’s it like to drive?

If you are accustomed to the luxurious insides of the new C-class, the AMG version comes as a bit of a surprise. Unlike the regular C, which looks a lot like baby S-class on the inside, the accent here is firmly on sport. You get plenty of black and grey, there are new sport seats with a wide racing harness-like backrest, a flat-bottomed steering wheel and the cabin’s awash with plenty of carbon fibre, red stitching and Alcantara. So instead of looking luxurious, it now looks sporty; it’s amazing what a bit of colour and trim can do. The most important upgrade is the new seats. With the kind of g-forces this car can muster, it’s really important that the driver is locked in place, and these new seats have tremendous lateral support.

The showpiece of the new C 63, however, is the new rip-snorting V8. There’s a disarmingly loud boom from the rear when you fire up the engine, and the square pipes lay out a thick layer of thunder behind you, even as you pull away. This is especially true if you kick the right pedal hard for short bursts in power.

The C 63 also does a decent job when it comes to ride quality. In ‘Comfort’, with the adjustable dampers on the softest setting, the new C 63 smothers most bad patches of road quite effectively. There’s a hard edge here for sure, because these are stiff fixed steel coils and not air springs, but it does manage to keep movements down to a minimum. However, should the quality of the surface deteriorate, the AMG does tend to hop over undulations in the road surface. And this is likely to affect how the car drives over rough patches in our conditions back home too. We’ll just have to wait and see how well it manages in our conditions.

But the C 63 S isn’t a car you buy to be cosseted in. What you buy this car for is manic, take-your-breath-away performance. And frankly there’s containerloads of that here. Toggle up to ‘Sport’ or ‘Sport+’ and the C 63 S comes into its own. Now everything is primed for action ¬– gearbox, throttle responses, steering and dampers – and the C 63 S digs its rear tyres into the ground so hard, it feels like it is vaulting from corner to corner in massive, barely controlled leaps. And I’m only still using part throttle!

Low and medium engine speed responses are so explosive, I don’t really use full throttle for a bit. Eventually I learn the ways of the car and gain enough confidence to use 100 percent of the power, the AMG exiting corners like it’s been shot out of a cannon. Now acceleration is nothing short of feral, the engine pulling hard all the way to the 7,000rpm redline. In fact, so strong is the pace, you tend to literally hold your breath as you feed in the power exiting a corner. What completes the experience is the racing V8-like manic howl towards the top end. AMG claims a 0-100kph time of 4.0sec for the C 63 S sedan; think about that! The only reservation we have is that the performance of the gearbox is a bit inconsistent; it feels fast and brilliant at times and frustratingly stubborn to shift down at others.

What enhances driving pleasure massively, however, is that the chassis allows you to use all that power. The electric steering isn’t the most communicative, but it’s well weighted and precise, and the front axle has so much grip, you tend to carve out tighter and tighter lines on the track with great amounts of confidence. What also works fabulously is the rear axle. It possesses outstanding poise and has the ability to transmit serious amount of power without getting nervous. And you can even add in power as you exit the corner, breakaway at the rear happening in a controllable manner; as long as you are smooth and precise. Still, using the multi-stage ESP really does help here.