Mercedes-AMG C63 S sedan
Australia's Best Driver's Car

9th

Mercedes-AMG’s C 63 S super-sedan arrived at ABDC 2016 with the weight of high expectations on its pumped-up shoulders. But the combination of too-firm suspension and light-switch power delivery dealt it a blow in judging which no amount of horsepower was unable to redress. This might be a super fast and furious mid-size muscle car, but that doesn’t mean it ticks all the driver’s car boxes…

Brutally powerful and wickedly quick, the latest Mercedes-AMG C 63 S is more sledge-hammer than scalpel. And that’s the opinion not just of this writer, but the whole Australia’s Best Driver’s Car judging team.

In fact, the car that promised so much when motoring.com.au drove it on the smooth confines of the Mt Panorama and Portimao race circuits at its local and world launches was, overall, a disappointment in Tasmania.

A throttle pedal that felt full of notches and a power delivery that was more light-switch than rheostat, combined with overly firm circuit-orientated suspension to make the AMG intimidating and at times almost unpredictable on Tasmania’s challenging road surfaces.

On the track the Benz was supercar-fast but kept even us racers absolutely on our toes. Wheel spin is only ever a flex of the foot away.

On the road the brittle suspension response, lack of compliance and power-down grip, and sharp but uncommunicative steering, made it challenging to drive quickly with any feeling of surety – even when the route was well known, well surfaced and dry.

“Just doesn’t have the grip – its limits are found too easily and it’s forever into the stability control,” Luke Youlden commented.

“Rides like a dray, even in Comfort mode. It skips over bumps. Lacks the compliance and progressive at limit handling of other sedans here,” Pettendy stated.

The 375kW/700Nm twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 is one of the world’s best engines and dominates the C 63 S. Indeed, the heart of the car is almost the whole story – and it shouldn’t be. To be a great driver’s car there needs to be connection and communication, and the C 63 S doesn’t deliver this.

“Feels very big in tight going, but lovely on sweepers,” Greg Leech pronounced.

“Easily knocked off line by bumps in all [suspension] modes,” Ken Gratton noted.

There was plenty of praise for the updated AMG automatic transmission – I believe it’s the best engineered part of the car. Along with the Jaguar F-TYPE, the C 63 S proves dual-clutch gearboxes aren’t the be-all and end-all of sporty self-shifters.

And the ABDC judging team also gave a thumbs-up to other aspects of the car’s packaging. We loved the seats and most of the other judges liked the driver’s cockpit and its fat-rimmed small-diameter steering wheel. From my own point of view, I’d need to spend more time in the C’s cabin to get entirely happy with the ergonomics. It’s still busy and some controls almost seem hidden. Not ideal…

But the majority of comments kept coming back to the mismatch between the car’s smooth-road (dare we say racetrack?) orientation and the contrasting suspension needs for fast, fun progress on the wild roads of the Apple Isle.

“Sad to say… the least impressive car I have driven [on this test],” Bruce Newton wrote.

“OMG, the pace of this car is mind-blowing… But I never felt complete trust,” Nadine Armstrong stated.

“Like a stockbroker on cocaine… Always feels on the edge but smells of money,” Chris Fincham joked.

Priced from $154,510, only the Porsche and Jaguar are more expensive in this company. There’s plenty of kit for the money and from an appearance standpoint all but one or two of the testers gave the interior and exterior design and appearance thumbs up.

But this C 63 S didn’t exhibit the vault-like build quality most of us expect from Mercedes and Affalterbach. In fact, the opposite -- eight of the 13 testers made notes about rattles, squeaks and groan in the C 63 S cabin.

Although these were definitely exaggerated by the aggressive suspension settings of the C 63 S, we learned after testing that the car we used for ABDC had led a particularly hard life from day one.

Almost everyone also commented on the raucous road noise and wind noise from driver’s side external mirror. Mercedes-Benz Australia points the finger in part at tyre choice. The Michelins fitted to our C 63 S, although the best choice from a performance point of view, are also the nosiest of the three tyres homologated for the car, the company said.

The motoring.com.au crew will take the complaints on notice and keep an eye (or should that be ear) out on future C-Class tests.

After picking the awesome A 45 AMG as my favourite car in 2015, I was so looking forward to driving the C 63 S at this year’s ABDC. The reality fell far short of my expectations.

The building blocks are there, but it seems to me like AMG signed off this car after only testing it on racetracks and autobahns. That just doesn’t cut it on Aussie roads, let alone the more challenging parts of my home state.

— With staff

motoring.com.au’s 2016 Australia’s Best Driver’s Car

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