You are looking at the most powerful Mercedes E-Class there has ever been. You are also looking at one of the fastest, most technically complex saloon cars ever built. So you can imagine this makes the new Mercedes-AMG E 63 some kind of a weapon, even beside the likes of the BMW M5 or any of Audi’s various RS models.
You are looking at one of the fastest most technically advanced saloon cars the world has ever seen because even in standard form the new 75 grand mercedes e63 boasts 563 bhp courtesy of its tweaked 4 litre twin-turbo v8 engine go for the 83 grand s model however which is the one we test here and that rises to a vaguely ridiculous 603 bhp with an astonishing 850
Newton metres of torque to go with it the e63 also comes with a nine speed dual clutch gearbox and launch control and as a result it can says mercedes hits 62 miles an hour in just 3.4 seconds and if that’s not enough to blow your mind it’s also four-wheel-drive although as we’ll discover in a bit you can switch this to make it rear-wheel drive by pressing the
Right buttons for the time being though what is this monster of a saloon car like to drive is it the hot rod that it so clearly appears to be on paper or has mercedes amg managed to engineer several cars together under just one roof well the very simple answer is and perhaps not too surprisingly d63 witty awesome on the move i’ve driven it down a motorway i’ve
Actually already driven it around the track but we’ll show you that a bit later but its best environment is on the road i mean you look at the numbers and you need 603 horsepower and 2 tons and 850 newton metres of torque and you just think what is that going to feel like in a saloon car but you do have to select the right mode with the e63 depending on your mood
Depending on the environment depending on the type of road you’re driving on you’ve got this little rocker switch down here and you’ve got anything from comfort to sport to sport plus to race and then to individual where you can tailor the steering the throttle map the gear change speeds the way the differ acts the way the esp system reacts you really can’t change
The mood and tone and feel of this car so if you just want to bumble down a motorway in it feels like a really sort of luxurious limousine but if then you want to spool it up into race mode because you find a nice empty piece of road like this one put your foot down and it just becomes a total hotrod i mean obviously it’s outrageously fast and as ever it’s the talk
That defines the feeling not necessarily the power it just piles on the revs so fast you kind of have to keep throwing gears at it all the time which is just as well that it has nothing to be gearbox to allow you to do that it’s kind of either fast really fast mentally fast or insane depending on what gear in and how much throttle you give it i love the steering
In the e63 it’s got this lovely natural feel to it you can really feel where the front end is on this color on i love that it’s a it’s definitely one up – mercedes / bmw when it comes to that kind of thing but when you put it in comfort the ride is good this cabin feels a million dollars it’s got loads of room in the backseat massive boot it’s a proper limo when
You want it to be i’m not quite sure that the gearbox is as snappy as it should be even when you put it in the fruitier setting i’d like it to downshift faster and more instantly when you wanted to and and on the way up – and on the motorway there was just a little bit more tire always than you’d want from a car like this when you want it to be calm and relaxed
And civilized but beyond that i’m totally blown away by this car it’s got so many different abilities on the one roof it’s extraordinary but now to really explore it we need to go to a track and oh look there happens to be one just down there we’ve already worked out how much of a beast this thing is on the road but this this is the real deal this is what it’s
Like on a track sounds absolutely the business top brakes i’m in drift mode inevitably cut it just lights up the rear tires instantly it’s not giving me down shifts quite as soon as i wanted to really don’t know about the gearbox i mean the rest of it just behaves absolutely beautifully it does feel like quite a big heavy wagon though i have to say there ain’t
No track kalus i mean it’s an absolute scream to drive on a track but it does feel a bit heavy and cumbersome i gotta be honest but the amount of talk i mean it’s just i’m absolutely rude you just move your right foot that much more on the accelerator pedal and the rear tires light up and you gotta be quite quick with your corrective lock because it goes so fast
But once you actually get it into a nice slide it’s it’s it’s a lovely thing to just sit there and drift in but i mean the way goes down this main stray just absolutely crude it really is stops really well for a big thing to the steering feel is nice the brake feel is delicious the throttle response is very good do you know why it actually got really good traction
Considering how much torque is going through those rear tires do i like the e63 on the track yes of course i do because it just feels like a complete hooligan of a hotrod car but there’s a lot of way to manage and there’s a lot of talk to manage as well kind of bounces a bit at the back and then if you can notice that as it just starts to to light up the diff is
Kind of chewing into the floor just to try and get as much purchase as possible i mean eventually it just goes sideways everywhere but then what do you expect with something that weighs two tons god it’s a proper laughs this car it really is but it does have its faults the gearbox it feels a bit bit kind of fluffy if you know what i mean see that’s full beans in
Third gear there that’s good it’s good it’s very good what a machine perhaps the e63 s greatest party trick is its new four-wheel drive system on the move this constantly monitors which wheels are generating the most grip and it can vary the talk accordingly by up to a hundred percent but where it gets really clever and maybe a little bit naughty as well is in
Its ability to become rear-wheel drive in what mercedes-amg describes as drift mode to select this you must go into the amg menu and select the right mode you also need to switch the traction control off and put the transmission in manual and then hey presto your 603 bhp now goes through the rear wheels and the rear wheels only at which point the rear tires are at
The mercy of your right foot so what i am now going to do just pop it in four-wheel drive and what burnt schneider has been saying it’s the best way to drive it is to treat it exactly as if it’s a rear-wheel drive car because it is fundamentally a rear-wheel drive car when it’s four-wheel drive because it’s it’s sending the power to the back until it senses there’s
A little bit of slip and then it starts to send power to the front in the extreme circumstances it will actually send 100% of the power to the front which is just astonishing how strong must the front drive shaft be but this is the best way to drive it on a track it’s just a tease the front end on the way kind of like that and not not going too fast i’ve still got
Esp off so it’s still over steering a bit but not anywhere near as much as it was a full drift mode i’ll tell you what for a two-ton beast traction there is outrageous yeah i definitely think it’s it’s definitely quicker and four-wheel drive mode without question because it just gives you this extra here traction on the way out i’m every cow still don’t get on with
This gearbox with the rest of it is wonderful and if you could take 500 kilograms out of it what a machine you know then and i suspect eventually that will be the c63 with this engine and this gearbox and that will be an utterly rude car as it is well it’s a total weapon of course it is and i loved it a bit it really is my kind of car this it does feel a little bit
Too heavy and i’m not sure about this gearbox but the rest of it the motor the chassis the steering even the brakes flippin marvelous this is a proper drivers weapon of a car i love it click on the video windows to watch a first drive of the smaller c63 or a track battle between the c63 estate and audi’s rs4 click on the play icon to watch our latest video or on our logo to subscribe
Transcribed from video
New Mercedes-AMG E 63 review: most powerful E-Class ever on road and track! By Auto Express
