Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG 2010 Review

Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG and CL 600

We liked
>> So much torque, you'll stop time
>> Gives AMG back the ol' 55's step-off mongrel
>> Surprisingly crisp handling for a big girl

Not so much
>> The front end is feeling old in corners
>> Dash layout is uninteresting
>> Just looks b-i-g

It's raining in the Alps Maritime as AMG's new boss, Ola Källenius, slides into the passenger seat of his new CL 63 AMG.

"This should be fun," he said, looking across. "Just fire it up and I'll show you what we made for you."

What he has made for us is really what his predecessor, Volker Mornhinweg, made for us, because Källenius has only been at AMG for a handful of months. And a handful of months isn't long enough to produce an engine of this caliber -- even if you are the man who once headed the development of the currently dominant Mercedes-Benz Formula One engine.

It's not long enough to design an all-new (well, mostly new) two-door body off the S-Class limousine, either, much less fit it out with the standard AMG tweaks, like enormous wheels and tyres, up-rated braking systems and hand-built interiors. That's probably why Källenius is spruiking the CL with the ardent fervor of an evangelist. It's all fairly new to him, too, because he was taken through every step of the program long after the deadline to change any of it had passed.

But, in terms of the CL 63's driveline, it's hard to see what he may have wanted to alter. This is the second stab AMG's had at its own engine and it's far better than even the impressive first.

The 6.2-litre V8 (Benz always called it a 6.3-litre, but it wasn't) was a pretty good engine, for sure. It was smooth, it sounded superb and a dry-sump version of it has been bloody convincing in the SLS. Yet, for those coming from the 5.4-litre supercharged V8 in AMGs of yore, there just wasn't enough torque right down there in its bowels -- when you immediately step off the brake and on to the throttle. Sure, the 63 picked up like a beauty over about 4000rpm, but beneath 4000 was exactly where the ol' 55s did their best work.

So AMG learned its lessons and built this, a 5.5-litre V8 with two turbochargers, direct fuel-injection and 400kW (544hp) of pure, unrelenting power. And, to maintain the bewildering nature of its naming system, insisted on calling it the CL 63 in homage to a car that was incorrectly named in the first place.

AMG's new powerplant is a seriously over-square engine, with the bore 98mm in diameter and the pistons only moving 90.5mm -- so it promises all manner of whipping response and high-end power. But two turbochargers mean it can still pick up the gristle down low. How does 800Nm of torque sound? No? Well, AMG offers a performance package version of this engine and it's got 900Nm, another 20kW of power and has had the speed limiter adjusted so it does 300km/h instead of the electronically limited 250!

That torque doesn't arrive up high, like it did in the last engine, either. The whole wad of the 'base' unit's 800Nm (it gets 1.0 bar of boost, rather than the Performance package's 1.3) is there right from 2000rpm and stays in a plateau until 4500.

The new engine is attached to the latest version of AMG's wet-clutch seven-speed automatic, which changes gear with deceptive haste when it's in Sport mode and with deceptive smoothness for the rest of the time. It's essentially the same gearbox Mercedes-Benz uses for its bigger cars, but it's got AMG's own clutch kit on the front of it to protect it from harm and to make the changes feel harder and more metallic when you're pushing your big machine.

It's also a thriftier beast at the pumps, too, and has a combined fuel economy number of 10.5L/100km (impressive, for 2.12 tonnes of big coupe), using start-stop technology to be 25 per cent better than the old 6.2-litre V8.

The biturbo manages this, in large part, because of better fuel metering. It's got spray-guided combustion and piezo fuel injectors, which can inject up to five times per stroke, to create a stratified layering of tiny droplets and air ready to be fried up on the power stroke. That's why it can offer such a huge boost in economy, even though it's pushing out 14kW more power (in the base version) and 170Nm more torque.

The new engine's first 'home is the facelifted CL -- Benz's biggest coupe. To hardcore it up a bit, AMG has added its  own bonnet, lights, grille, tail lights and then threw in huge, 19-inch alloy wheels and Yokohama tyres.

The dashboard will be utterly familiar to anybody who's ever stepped inside an S-Class, with its row of odd, toggly button-type things spread horizontally beneath the vents and the MMI screen, though Benz has followed Audi's lead and gone to Bang and Olufsen for its new, high-end sound system. But, for the first experience, no amount of leather, audio or software tweaking in the MMI setup beats firing up the new engine. Källenius is right. This thing rocks. Almost literally...

The CL 63 gives an involuntary shudder as the eight-pot fires up with a bwoar, then settles into an equally grumpy idling rhythm. Källenius looks across with a raised, knowing eyebrow. The fat, leather-trimmed steering wheel, with its metal gearshift paddles lurking behind the 3 and 9 spokes, beckons and the clutches engage to send the huge coupe out of the parking lot.

In itself, this is a challenge. The CL 63 is not a small car. It's a slightly cut-down S-Class and its wheelbase alone is 2955mm. I could lie with my feet at the front axle, stretch my arms back and still not reach the rear one. It's also 5.106 metres long -- and not too many four-door limos are that generous with their metal -- and i1871mm wide. With a 2135kg kerb weight, you wouldn't want the driver to misjudge and claim your foot, either.

And then there's the surprise. Once you've navigated the carpark, the big bertha coupe doesn't feel that big anymore. It feels extremely comfortable, it rides well and it's civilized, with the V8 a deep, distant rumble up there, in front of all that metal and stuff. Find a little gap, though, and the CL 63 closes it in stupendous fashion. There's a deep induction howl, a growing, soft whistle from the turbos, forcing in air at a bar of pressure, and then a throbbing, meaty exhaust song.

So you set off in search of larger gaps. And larger. And larger. And you quickly figure out that there are very, very few gaps out there large enough to let you use all the astonishing acceleration in all the gears. Conversely, it also means that you don't need a very big piece of clear road to dispatch any pesky trucks or slower machines. Sometimes, 50 metres seems enough.

That's because the SL 63 hurls itself, in a cloud of sound and fury, to 100km/h in a supercar-esque 4.5 seconds (the extra 20kW of the Performance version cuts another tenth). But even this isn't the whole story, because it rids itself of the next 100km/h in what feels like about the same time. Realistically, it's probably about a seven-second exercise, but it's still brutally fast.

The gearbox is a fuss-free companion to all of this violence, but this changes when you're in Sport mode. There, AMG decided you wouldn't mind feeling a bit of the brutality that goes through a gearbox's internals, so it changes gear with a clanging, metallic thud and it does it quickly.

For all its undoubted power, the new CL 63 is a faithful and predictable big thing. But it isn't quite fun. The steering is solid and stable and it picks up Benz's new piece of wizardry to stop you drifting accidentally out of your lane by braking and steering you out of trouble. And that's about the only time it gives you any feedback. It gets a bit heavier when you switch into the Sport mode, but it's still only weight, not precision.

The multi-adjustable seats can reinforce you corner by corner, though some people find this a bit distracting (me for one) and just turn it back to either bracing you tight for the twisty bits or giving you a massage for the highways. If it's too cold, they can be heated. If it's too hot, they can blow cooling air through their perforations. They're the Goldilocks seats, except if you want them to be light weight.

The brakes cope manfully with all of this tonnage being thrown around mountain passes. Unusually, they're a combination of a sliding-type caliper and a fixed caliper. It looks strange and big, but it works a treat.

Then, when you're out of the mountains and driving sensibly again, the big AMG is a stupendous cruiser, flitting at 160 or so like a heavyweight champ arm-wrestling a four-year old.

The CL 63 is not going to be everything to all people, but AMG's new engine is definitely a taste of things to come.

And more fool them, because the latest bi-turbo AMG V8 is a better engine than this old lump of iron, even though it's got more power and better economy than its predecessors.

Benz calls the CL 600 the "summit of its drive units", but it couldn't be more wrong. For all its power (380kW and 17 up on the old engine) and all its torque (830Nm), it's belittled by the sheer quality of what, and how, the new V8 delivers.

That said the V12 is still a fairly smooth beastie, but it is a beastie. It takes an already-unsporting chassis and moves another 115kg over the front axle, which doesn't help anything.

To reinforce the egos that will doubtless be the sole driving purchasing reasons for this car, the V12 badge is everywhere, from the headrests to the dash display and, externally, from the flanks to the bootlid. It also scores pretty much everything you can find in Benz's bag of ride, safety and comfort tricks, including the split-screen MMI display, so the driver can navigate and the passenger can watch television at the same time.

The software might be cutting edge, but the S 600 is technically inferior, in hardware terms, to its V8 brother. It has a (very) old school three valves per cylinder and runs a lower compression ratio and, to pile on more embarrassment, it only has a five-speed automatic transmission.

It hauls the mail, though, bursting to 100km/h in 4.6 seconds, but its uses 13.8L/100km on the combined cycle and much more than that in the real world.

If you know someone who buys one of these, resist -- as strongly as you can -- the temptation to point at them knowingly and laugh.

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