The new Mercedes C-class estate has a lot to recommend it. The maximum load capacity is a class-leading 1500 litres. The 3.5-litre V6 is an impressively smooth engine. The handling is engaging. There are even coat-hooks on the tailgate. It is a fine car. It’s also an intensely frustrating one if you have to drive it around for an entire afternoon knowing Mercedes is playing ‘hide the C63 AMG’ somewhere nearby until 8am the following morning…
It’s worth the wait, though. After a restless night, it’s hard to tell which brings my early morning bleariness into sharper focus, the pipe-cleaner of cold mountain air entering the nostrils or the sight of a greyscale line of white, silver, grey and black C63s silently waiting. No pictures can do the sheer aggressiveness of the C63 justice. The shoulderless M3 would wilt in its shadow and even the squat RS4 would appear slightly soft-edged parked alongside.
The front, which hides two new oil-coolers for engine and transmission, is deep, slightly pointed and chunky. The two ‘Power Domes’ on the bonnet are more ‘Power Ridges’ but they have a much greater visual impact than you’d credit. The 6.3 badging as you walk around the side is nice. You can have 19in wheels but the standard 18s with their deep runnel in each of the five spokes are some of the best I’ve seen in ages. A diffuser (which they admit is just a must-have visual accessory) splits the quad tail-pipes at the rear, while a BMW-esque lip on top of the boot serves as a rear wing. The rear bumper also appears to jut slightly, adding to a certain DTM atmosphere.
There’s a Touring Car hint inside too, with a really rather fantastic steering wheel. It’s flat-bottomed, appears marginally horizontally stretched and is just slightly smaller than your average. Two silver paddles are attached to the back of it, marked ‘down’ (left) and ‘up’ (right). As in the RS4, the sports seats have single-piece backs and bolsters that inflate round the sides of your ribcage, but these are slightly plusher than the Audi’s. The rest of the interior is pleasantly unremarkable C-class fare, reminding you that for all its DTMness this is still a saloon that has to be as functional as a daily commute.
It would be a daily commute that would start with a small explosion every morning, however. Turn the key and the cold V8 comes to life with an unexpectedly loud report before settling to a deep, familiarly steady burble. Having used our time in the load-lugger yesterday to recce a few roads, we know where we’re heading and ease out through the sleepy German village. The steering feels promisingly devoid of the low-speed lightness that afflicts other variable racks, although the car as a whole feels quite large manoeuvring through the streets past parked cars. The ride is firm but fantastically tightly controlled.
We’re aiming for fast, smooth roads to start with – the perfect environment to discover what the headline figures mean in reality. In case you need reminding, the numbers are 449bhp at 6800rpm and 442lb ft of torque at 5000rpm (with at least 83 per cent of maximum torque, or 369lb ft, available from 2000 to 6250rpm).
It’s soon clear that, in a smallish four-door saloon, that sort of energy feels monstrous. The 6.3 litres wake up at 2000rpm and then deliver their performance in a rapid, unstressed, utterly linear manner all the way to the 7200rpm limiter, as 120mph appears from nowhere. It’s like a heavyweight boxer casually knocking out a lesser mortal. Overtakes snap your head back and corners arrive so rapidly that fast sweepers can begin to look a bit tight. It is a seriously, seriously quick car. There are no traction issues either, the C63 deploying every last scrap, the yellow ESP triangle staying resolutely unlit unless you start clomping the throttle provocatively.
Gearshifts are dealt with in one of three modes. ‘Comfort’ is for others. ‘Sport’ reduces shift times by 30 per cent, holds onto each of the seven gears longer and downchanges earlier. Shifts in ‘Manual’ take half the time of those in comfort and the ’box won’t change up unless you tell it to.
It’s worth driving in Sport to start with, as it helps you to readjust to the reach of the engine. At 3500rpm the V8 sounds like it’s spinning at about 6000rpm, so if you’re in manual mode the initial temptation is to change up too early, particularly as the rev-counter is tucked over to the right slightly out of sight. When you do start using the paddles – which feel like slightly soft switches – the key is to wait until your peripheral vision spots the speedo turn red before pulling back with your right index finger.
The 7G-Tronic still isn’t the snappiest shifter but this is the first time it has had blips on the downchanges, and it’s a big improvement. There was still the occasional unanswered call, and there’s a strange slurring if you’re not going quickly when you change down, but brake late and change aggressively and you’ll be accompanied by more, very satisfying, small explosions from the exhaust pipes.
The ESP now has three very well-judged stages too – ‘On’, ‘Sport’ and ‘Off’. And ‘Off’ really does mean off, so you can indulge yourself and do big skids. If you want to showboat, however, it’s worth noting that until the sport pack arrives, electronics are cleverly doing the work of a limited slip diff, and there are some curiosities to the way it slides. At first it can feel like an inside wheel is spinning up, as if there’s no diff (which there isn’t), and then once you’ve broken traction in both tyres it can be a little tricky to modulate the slip with the throttle.
Mostly the C63 is not a hooligan, however. It just demolishes a road. The front track has been increased by 35mm and the rear 12mm over the standard C-class, and the front suspension is a completely new three-link design. Combined with a larger anti-roll bar, this has made the front end 100 per cent stiffer. Throw the car at a sequence of corners and it moves as one through them, front and rear ends in unison. Grip is huge and the C63 sits very four-square on the road. Its ground-covering ability is so devastating that it’s up there with Subarishis. The natural balance means that the front will push fractionally wide first and it would be nice to have a little more feel through the steering when it happens, but it’s progressive and easily adjusted. Such is the speed and ability of the car that the huge six-piston callipers clamping the 360mm discs only just seem adequate. I would have liked a bit more confidence and information from the middle pedal when slowing all 1730kg into a corner, too.
By the time we arrive at AMG’s headquarters, the C63 has undoubtedly sealed its place alongside the M3 and RS4. No longer is it the obvious bronze medal of the trio. But has it beaten them? Would I take a three-pointed star over a blue-and-white roundel or four rings? In terms of looks, yes. If I wanted to get from A to B as quickly as possible, yes. If I wanted the most enjoyable car… no, not quite. The paddle-shift still isn’t quite beyond reproach, particularly sitting next to the Bimmer’s fantastically slick manual. And brilliant and impressive though the C63’s chassis is, the malleability of the BMW still shines through and gets the nod.
Oh, and if I wanted to transport 1500 litres of stuff and have coat-hooks on the tailgate? Then yes, I’d have a C63 AMG, because the estate should reach us at the same time as the saloon next summer.
