Mercedes-AMG GT C Coupe Edition 50 2017 Review

Somewhere in the wildly forested hills that thrust through north-western Germany’s bucolic farmlands, the road stops being straight.

The simplest thing to write would be that this has suddenly turned into GT C Coupe country, but that would be to sell short the fastest version of Mercedes-AMG’s second in-house sports car. Well, it’s the fastest version that isn’t aimed at the track, like the GT R.

It scores a-l-m-o-s-t GT R levels of gristle, with the 410kW it extracts from the 3982cc twin-turbo V8 just 20kW shy, and five perc ent when you’ve already got plenty is not really enough to be noticed in the real world.

Importantly, it also scores the GT R’s rear-wheel steering system and its moveable from splitter to equalise the aero balance at speed. What it also gains is 70kg of mass compared to the 1555kg track special, though its DIN (dry) figure of 1625kg is 35kg lighter than the GT C Roadster.

It’s quicker than its topless cousin (which, unusually, launched first), but only academically. Its claimed 0-100km-sprint time is the same at 3.7 seconds, but the rear-wheel drive coupe’s top speed is a single km/h higher, at 317km/h.

To kick things off, there’s an Edition 50 version, to celebrate AMG’s 50th birthday in a more accessible way than its other 50th birthday celebration car (the Project One hypercar).

All 500 of the Edition 50s will have mostly paint, wheel and trim differences to stock GT C Coupes, but there’s also a subtle number in the bottom steering-wheel spoke to show where you were in the list.

So with all of this power, with 680Nm of torque kicking in from just 1900rpm (and staying on until almost 6000rpm) and with just rear-wheel drive, this thing could have turned into a squirming, bucking, tail-sliding monster of a thing, but it didn’t.

It’s the opposite. The GT C Coupe instead shows beautiful balance in its development program, with enough inbuilt aggression and pointiness in the front-end to keep it interesting for a long time, yet it’s still a sweetheart of a thing to drive quickly.

It doesn’t get dull to drive, even if it’s ultimately benign and does its best to make the driver look and feel like a hero. That’s partly taken care of via the drive modes (individual, comfort, sport, sport + and race), but largely by the rear-wheel steering and the tight electronically controlled differential, both of which take potential going-too-fast problems and turn them into safety, speed and giggles.

Most people whack it straight into either Sport or Sport + mode, both of which turn it into a raucous, barking, snapping, aurally threatening brute of a thing. The odd part of this is that the noise coming from the powertrain is completely at odds with the effortless high-speed composure coming from the chassis and suspension, so don’t let the GT C Coupe fool you.

The speed is there to back up the stroppiness, too. There are times when it’s breathtakingly fast, especially on in-gear acceleration and especially out of corners, where it soaks up any available traction like an all-wheel drive car, but without the understeer or the weight.

It’s not all down to the rear-wheel steering, though, because the rear track width is 57mm wider than the standard GT and GT S models, which gives it a more stable platform and also allows AMG to stuff 305/30 R20 rubber beneath it.

And so when the road bends, the AMG whips through with handling and sophistication that is far more sophisticated than its caveman calling card of bangs, crackles and bellows.

When the road’s ripostes turn savage and nasty, the GT C delves deeper into its core engineering and flits through with barely diminished speed and only enhanced respect from the driver.

Its ability to change direction sharply, then back again, under either full throttle or full braking is astonishing. You can forget the old rules of engagement about braking only in straight lines, because the GT C doesn’t care which way you’ve got the steering wheel pointed when you mash its left pedal.

It will just hunker down, bite into the road and wash off speed, with its rear-end resolutely refusing to become unsettled enough to throw you off line.

It’s brilliant in fast corners, too. At its outer edges of sanity, it will turn in with a trace of understeer before the rear steering adds its assurance and the car settles in to a calm stance, which can lean more on either end, depending on your driving preference.

Its rear-end stays impressively flat, regardless of what you do to it or what the road surface throws at it from underneath, and that just keeps adding to the driver’s confidence.

It takes barely three corners before you trust it implicitly, assured that it will never prickle your neck hairs in an interesting corner. High road crowns, shifting cambers, sudden drop-offs: none of it phases the composure of the GT C Coupe.

It only needs a bit more steering feedback to make its handling package utterly scintillating. It’s fast and accurate and well weighted, but it doesn’t deliver Porsche 911 levels of communication, and the steering wheel itself is a little too chunky around the spokes to let your fingers wrap neatly around it.

It’s manageable and controllable in ways that never turn boring or dull, like some cars that are electronically controlled as cover for their suspension engineering, because its suspension engineering is pretty good in the first place.

The rear-end uses five links, governed by an adaptive damping system to complement its own steering system, which turns in the same direction as the front wheels at speed, but in the opposite direction around town.

That type of thought to help the city-driving side of its character is what makes it such a good all-rounder. It turns into a relatively quiet, very polite citizen in its Comfort mode, with the dampers softening off the ride quality, its exhaust bypass valve closing to shush it up and the gearbox oozing through the shifts and grabbing taller gears.

It also sails on highways in Comfort, to save fuel by noiselessly disengaging the transmission to deliver 11.4L/100km for the NEDC and 259g/km of CO2.

The stock brakes are six-piston monobloc fixed callipers clamping down on 390mm x 36mm compound discs, while the rear-end only uses a single piston to retard its 360mm x 26mm disc.

Another critical development has been in the software governing the shifts for the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. It’s now so good, clever and intuitive that you can even leave it to its own devices on a track without being any slower.

The only time we found any benefit to shifting ourselves was exiting some bumpy corners, where a short-shift into a taller gear and a thicker part of the torque curve was useful. Otherwise, it snaps through cleanly and almost exactly when you’d do it yourself (AMG’s chief driving instructor admits he even leaves it in automatic mode when he’s drifting the car).

If the car itself is easy to drive, so is the cabin, which features an unusually straight on driving position and plenty of leather, carbon-fibre and Alcantara.

It has door pockets so tiny they make the miniscule glovebox seem like a dump truck, though the centre console is plenty large (and has two USB connections) and it has two proper cup holders.

But for all the sophistication of the below-decks package, the engine finds plenty of ways to ensure it’s never forgotten and it’s the first thing you notice and the last impression you come away with.

The dry-sump V8 plants its two turbochargers deep in the engine’s vee angle to improve throttle response and cooling and it’s bullock strong at every point of its range.

It builds up strength right from idle, hurling you back with torque from about 1500rpm and then the mid-range bellow turns into a deep scream at 7000rpm, then it cracks through a shift and does it all again, over and over, until it crests gently into its limiter at an indicated 270km/h. And there’s plenty left hiding in the shadows of the speed limiter.

But the GT C Coupe Edition 50 isn’t cheap, as you can see from the full Australian AMG GT price list below (plus on-road costs), as announced in August ahead of first deliveries in October.

GT Coupe — $258,711
GT Roadster — $283,711
GT S Coupe — $298,711
GT C Coupe Edition 50 — $335,211
GT C Roadster — $338,711
GT R Coupe — $348,711

Priced at just over $335,000, the Edition 50 has been positioned just $3500 lower than the GT C Roadster and only $13,500 below the hard-core GT R, as well as $36,500 above than the facelifted GT S Coupe and a cool $76,500 higher than the standard GT Coupe.

A cheaper, standard GT C Coupe is yet to come, but it will still cost more than $300K – more than either the rear-drive or AWD Porsche 911 GTS – so the only real question here is the value of the Edition 50 relative to its AMG siblings and its most direct rivals.

2017 Mercedes-AMG GT C Coupe Edition 50 pricing and specifications:
On sale: October
Price: $335,211 plus on-road costs
Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V8
Power: 410kW @ 5750-6750rpm
Torque: 680Nm @ 1900-5500rpm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual clutch
Fuel: 11.4L/100km
CO2: 259g/km
Safety rating: TBA