AMG HILL CLIMB
Twelve hills and AMGs to the summit. This is the first one
The Mercedes-AMG C 43 climbs Nandi hills
EVERYTHING IS IN SPORT PLUS. I’VE left the gearbox in auto mode instead of manual because concentrating on learning the climb through the first few corners and upshifting at the redline was a little overwhelming to begin with. A tug of the left paddle at the exit of a hairpin and exiting the corner with the ferocious traction of the all-wheel drive C 43 AMG, I was eating away at the Nandi hill climb like a man possessed. A fast apex-hunting run from the base to the summit in the C 43 AMG with the exhaust note of the turbocharged V6 reverberating through the dense foliage alongside the winding road. This is the AMG hill climb.
“Straight roads are for fast cars, curves are for fast drivers.” Colin McRae’s words separate the men from the boys. Drive your car long and hard on arrow-straight highways and all you will do is spend on fuel bills. You will learn little about the car and even less about the art of driving fast. But find a winding road and a few kilometres up and down the road will teach you the skills to balance its weight, how much throttle to use, how hard to brake, which gear to choose and how far ahead to look. The winding road is your greatest teacher.
Preconceived notions
AMG sedans have always been fast, muscular, tyre-shredding monsters. Massive V8s sending all of Affalterbach’s protein shakes to the rear wheels. You’ve got to be a bit of a hooligan to drive one, let alone tame one. So when I picked up the C 43 AMG from the AMG Performance Centre in Bangalore the day before, its deep red hue aside, it looked like a C-Class sleeper car. I knew there was a turbocharged V6 under the hood but it didn’t look like a car that will wield 362 horsepower and 520Nm under its sheep skin and do the 0-100kmph sprint in 4.7 seconds. I’m a fan of cars with split personalities though. If you want an everyday fast car, compliance in the suspension and comfortable interiors are a must. The C 43 AMG is a very comfortable car and loves to carve corners, as I found out while snaking through the first few kilometres up the hill climb.
Uphill task
Tipu Sultan built a fort on this hill and it took the British army three weeks to capture it; the hill was that tough to climb up. As it stands today though, the tarmac road to the entrance gate of
the fort on top is 8km long. It climbs to a height of 1478 metres above sea level and as luck would have it, we got freshly paved tarmac all the way to the top. The surface was smooth enough to give racetracks a run for their money. It curves up the base of the hill for the first part where the road is fairly open. You can see far ahead and hold triple digit speeds in short bursts. A short wall separates you from the drop while to your right is the sheer cliff. There is no run off anywhere but the fast series of corners lets you get into a rhythm, carry high speeds and thread it through a series of bends. The elevation is gradual till you reach a wide sweeping left-hander where the first rays of the sun bounce off the long bonnet of the C 43 AMG. It’s a fast sweep and the speeds I carry are a little too much as it suddenly narrows. The trees are tall and thick on both sides and in between rocks protrude from the mountainside so I lift off the gas, dial down the speed a little and enter into the steeper section of the climb.
Tight spot
The narrow hill climb henceforth brings in corners at a rapid rate and heavy braking into corners and quick acceleration out of bends is the order of the day from now on. The winding road doesn’t flow from one corner into another once I approach the first of ten hairpins. Carrying momentum and easing off the accelerator is not the driving style suited to this part of the hill. In the previous long sweeping corner sections, I was using more of the power, but as the hairpins start, I ride the C 43 AMG’s deep torque reserves. Since it is turbocharged and hence high on torque, I get to play with 520Nm at 2000rpm, giving the C 43 AMG plenty of thrust at hairpin exits. I’ve hardwired my brain to back off the gas when I’m attacking a hairpin in an AMG. It is guaranteed oversteer and if you are too hot on the gas, you’ll get one final view of the landscape. In the C 43 AMG, I didn’t have to do that. The AMG sends power to all four wheels so I can step on the power early, the tail doesn’t step out like in a rear-drive monster. Neither is there any ugly understeer if I feed in too much power, unlike in other AWDs. It just grips and goes, all four wheels clawing up the hill at speeds that don’t seem natural for a car with four doors and all the luxuries it comes packed with.
Because the surface all the way to the top is so smooth, the suspension can be set at its stiffest setting. It improves the dynamics considerably and gives the confidence to drive faster. It feels like a relay race between hairpins, getting from one to another till you enter the gates to the fort. The car turns in with a lot of agility, the vented discs work well to shave off speed and the grip from the Continentals is immense. It’s a short climb so the summit comes quickly, I enter the gate for the fort, loop around the roundabout and blast back down.
A SHORT WALL SEPARATES YOU FROM THE DROP WHILE TO MY RIGHT IS THE SHEER CLIFF
The way back
A hill climb is challenging, and that is why it is fun. The more you ride the curves, the faster you will get. As your speeds increase, you will notice the smaller mistakes you have been making and finetune your driving style. You will learn a lot about the car in the process. I was feeding power earlier through a turn towards the end of the drive than I was when we started as I had learned to trust the AWD system. I was downshifting to the correct gear in the 9-speed ’box after a few runs up the hill too. I was driving with precision and I was driving fast. The C 43 AMG up Nandi hills was an adrenaline rush. What it did overall was heighten my reflexes. It is natural to be more attentive as the road curves and that made me a calmer driver on the way back. The sense of speed makes you act quicker and once you feel it, it stays with you at all times. Mastering the art of the winding road will make you a safer driver everywhere. We have been doing that for a while now in all sorts of cars and SUVs and have learnt a lot from it. But we haven’t carved a hill with AMG chisels quite like this before. The C 43 AMG climb to Nandi hills is the start of greater things to come.