Mercedes-AMG C 63 S Coupe 2016 Review

Mercedes-AMG C 63 S Coupe
Australian Launch Review
Bunyip State Forest, Victoria

Back in May motoring.com.au got behind the wheel of the Mercedes-AMG C 63 S Coupe for a quick blast around Sydney's Motorsport Park.

And the verdict was positive... but qualified. At the time Editor-in-Chief Mike Sinclair held back judgement until we had a chance to drive the C 63 Coupe on the road. What brought about this unaccustomed reticence, you may wonder?

During this year's running of Australia's Best Driver's Car, the C 63 S sedan tested didn't win as many friends as expected. It was generally felt to be hard-riding and the power delivery was notchy. Even on the racetrack it was a handful. Its unexceptional result was attributed in part to the track-oriented tyres fitted.

As a further point to note, in our February 2016 comparison, the BMW M4 was faster in a straight line than the C 63 S sedan – for braking as well as standing-start acceleration and overtaking times. Also worth noting, however, the Mercedes was slightly quicker around the Broadford track.

With its wider track and added negative camber, front and rear, the C 63 Coupe promised to be a more capable, more forgiving car than the sedan. But it called for a real-world test to make that final determination.

That's a circuitous way of explaining how I came to be in a C 63 S Coupe making the 130km run from the Mulgrave headquarters of Mercedes-Benz Australia to a little country café in the picturesque Gippsland township of Jindivick.

The drive was scenic and the day dawned cold but sunny. An ardour for using the C 63's performance and dynamic ability was swiftly dampened by the police RBT station, the camera-equipped RAV4 parked by the side of the road and a marked car also on the route.

But that didn't preclude all fun, with the scenery (occasionally) rushing past, accompanied by the full-throated roar from the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8. It's been said before, but the bellow from this engine is unheard of – if you'll pardon the expression. Exhaust-gas percussion is usually subdued by driving a turbine.

Yet somehow Mercedes-AMG has produced an engine that sounds as strident as any naturally-aspirated engine. It crackles and pops with wicked glee on the overrun. And it will readily light up the rear tyres with little provocation – despite the wider track and saturation-level law enforcement along the way.

The engine drives through AMG's seven-speed Speedshift MCT (multi-clutch transmission), which brings together the best features of a manual transmission and an automatic, and few of the vices. Release the brake and the multi-plate clutch imparts just a trickle of torque to the prop shaft. There's little of the creep you'd normally get in a conventional automatic transmission. But other than the lack of a torque converter, the C 63's transmission is simply a variation on the old-fashioned epicyclic automatic.

In the C 63 the transmission can be operated through paddles for sequential shifting, but it can also be left to its own devices (in different drive modes – including Comfort, Sport, Sport+ and Race) to shift down automatically and aggressively as the driver brakes for corners.

Smooth when used in Comfort/Drive mode, responsive in the other drive modes, this is one very smart transmission. At lower speeds the difference in shift points between the various modes can be quite marked – with the respective gear selected spooling up revs from below 2000rpm in Comfort mode, to above 4000rpm in the extreme Race mode.

Driven normally for the most part, and frenetically on a few occasions, the C 63 S finished the drive program with the trip computer posting a fuel consumption figure of 11.2L/100km. Obviously the potential is there for the car to use fuel by the bucket load – figures north of 16L/100km are not out of the question, even in such a benign environment as the route for the drive programme.

Other than the engine under load, the tyres were the most intrusive source of noise – and most apparently on the coarse-chip country bitumen that comprised most of the drive program.

On those same roads, the C 63's steering was not that crisp in Comfort mode, and turn-in was slightly slower, but the steering response and feedback in the enthusiast modes was much better.

The ride was firm, even in Comfort mode, but clearly calmer than the C 63 sedan that took part in this year's ABDC. There was compensation for the moderately hard ride quality in the coupe's handling, which was highly enjoyable – oversteer pretty much whatever the driver did. Never mind whether heavy with the throttle, or backed off into the corner, it was always the tail that let go first.

Seats were aggressively bolstered, but comfortable and supportive for longer trips, nonetheless. They came with a motor-driven seat base return memory for climbing in and out of the back. The C 63 Coupe was a little cramped inside. From the front-passenger seat the nicely styled and finished dash and centre fascia seemed dominated by the big infotainment screen, which sits proud of the dash. It's a prominent fixture that is all the more conspicuous in the coupe – and from the passenger seat particularly – than in the sedan.

The satellite navigation displays in that screen. During the drive the sat-nav placed the car's location about 10 to 15m off the road, despite the road being long established and bordered on either side by mature trees. Plainly there was a glitch in the mapping data, since closer to Melbourne the system worked faultlessly.

Switchgear and instrumentation were standard Benz C-Class offerings. I found the calibrations of the speedo were not ideal in speed-sensitive Victoria. The numbers jumped from 60 to 90km/h for instance, which meant longer time spent mentally processing the readout for 70 or 80km/h zones – and that could be enough to get you booked for 10km/h over the limit.

Otherwise the driving position was efficient and comfortable. If you're familiar with Benz control placement you'll quickly find the stalk on the lower left to adjust the steering column, for instance, and the push-to-start button on the dash, right of the steering column. If you're not so familiar, it will take a little longer, as neither of those controls are visible from driver's seat.

Adults of average height can endure the rear seats for short trips, but I found headroom to be inadequate back there with the sunroof fitted. And sit a taller passenger in front of you and there's not much leg/knee room left in the rear seats.

The boot is as small as it looks from the outside, but there are flip-down seat releases within to liberate more luggage space, shared with the cabin. There's no spare tyre under the floor, just a tyre repair kit to keep you moving.

Normally I wouldn't comment on a car's looks, but I'll make an exception in this instance. I find it a very nice shape... very agreeable. It's not the hulking, wide-track stance at the rear of say a BMW M2, but it's fluid and appealing for precisely that reason.

2016 Mercedes-AMG C 63 S Coupe pricing and specifications:
Price: $162,400 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 turbo-petrol
Output: 375kW/700Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel: 8.7L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 202g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: TBC

Also consider:
>> Audi RS5 (from $157,510 plus ORCs)
>> BMW M4 (from $149,900 plus ORCs)
>> Lexus RC F (from $133,110 plus ORCs)