BREATHE FIRE
Celebrating the lifting of the lockdown with the hooligan that is the C 63 AMG Coupe
The Mercedes-AMG C 63 Coupe may have lost two doors and some power, but it is still properly wild
EIGHT WEEKS! IT’S EIGHT WEEKS SINCE I tested a new car. Drove a fast car. Drove… not to the shops or the office… but drove to put a smile on my face. It’s eight weeks since the lockdown kicked in and we’ve been forced to live like social media influencers, abusing the #stayhome #staysafe hashtags, as this dastardly virus turns our lives upside down. It’s eight weeks since I experienced The Thrill of Driving. And what better car to get back to work with than an AMG, this particular example being one of my absolute favourites.
Which begs the question, if it’s so familiar why is it on the cover of this magazine?
The C 63 isn’t new to India. Neither is the AMG Coupe new to India. But this particular car, the C 63 AMG Coupe is new. Up until now we had the C 63 in its very practical fourdoor guise. And early last year we got the AMG Coupe in the C 43 spec with all-wheel drive to save you from your lack of talent and a V6 motor to not probe the outer limits of your talent. Obviously there was demand for something less practical and more demanding to play the hooligan with and that’s what we have here, the C 63 AMG Coupe.
Which prompts the second important question. Will we miss the S on the boot lid? We need empty roads, plenty of corners and my bottle of brave pills to find out.
WELCOME BACK TO THE TEMPLE RUN. UNTIL OTHER media houses discovered it — and pissed off the locals who then kicked everybody out — we used to get our kicks on this closedoff hill climb. Discovered eight years ago, incidentally when I was driving back from Mercedes-Benz after introducing this magazine prior to its launch, it is a dozen corners that wriggle their way up the hill to a solitary temple at the top. It’s a mix of tight and wide hairpins, short straights, some esses and kinks, and a drop that gets steeper as we go higher. No villages, no huts, no tea shops, no side roads, nothing to interrupt your flow. And with all places of worship shut right now, there’s nobody to come and ask us the hundred questions every uncle thinks is his God-given right to spit out.
But first, stealth mode. I’m up at 4am, catch up with the (masked) crew at 5 and head out for the Mercedes-Benz factory in two cars (social distancing!). In normal circumstances I’d be euphoric at the lack of traffic but eight weeks under lockdown can put a dramatic twist to your perspective. Now, you want the
wheels of the economy to start turning. You want more people up and about, not a game of cricket being played in the Bus Rapid Transit lane. We dispense with the drive from Pune to the industrial hub of Chakan in less than half an hour, and I’m not even attempting a 40th anniversary remake of Rendezvous (doesn’t ring a bell? Check it out on YouTube). Waiting at the factory gates is a sanitised C 63 AMG Coupe, and that’s as close as we will get to the factory what with all the Covid-19 precautions being vigorously implemented. No lunch at the canteen this time.
Under the soft morning light the AMG looks fantastic. The C 63 Coupe now sheds two doors and the S badge. The latter addresses the dim wits of the casual observer who used to dismiss the 4-door C 63 as a surprisingly noisy C-Class. Up front is the snarly Panamericana grille from the AMG GT that, to some eyes, is too much while to my eye is appropriately threatening. An AMG isn’t a cuddly toy and the C 63 Coupe looks every inch the iron-pumping undertaker. Just look at the bonnet bulges!
The wheelarches are heavily blistered, especially evident at the rear where they are flamboyantly flared to accommodate the Coupe’s widened track (50mm more than the saloon). The swoopy roof-line received its fair share of praise on the C 43 AMG Coupe and it looks even better when married to the pumped up wheelarches and then festooned with all the optional carbon bits including that boot spoiler. And finally the wheels. 18-inchers are standard, this car is upsized to the max and even gets the wheel hub cover that does a great impression of a centre-lock nut. The 19s up front are shod with 255/35 rubber while the gigantic 20s on the rear get super-wide and super-low 285/30 rubber. This is seriously low profile and it raises two troubling questions. One: will it last on Indian roads? Two: the C 63 S AMG rode hard as nails, will my tooth fillings shake loose at the end of the day? And oh, the most important question, will deleting the S badge take away its mojo?
Less of a hooligan?
Deleting the S badge means the C 63 AMG Coupe loses 34bhp to now put out 476bhp of power. Torque is down 50Nm to 650Nm. The 0-100kmph time goes up by a tenth of a second to 4 seconds. And the roads at Temple Run are rather shabby. It’s bloody amazing that we make roads and only return ten years later to effect repairs or maintenance. Anyway, on the plus side we have this private road all to ourselves, and don’t have to deal with the uncles who want to know who you are, what you’re doing, who gave you permission, even the size of your underwear.
I’m wearing my extra large boxers to leave room for the after effects of the brave pills I’ve been popping all morning. There is, after all, no other way to drive the C 63 than with everything off. In fact, there is no other reason to buy a C 63 if you don’t want to switch everything off and abuse the brave pills.
Now along with the 34 horses, the C 63 AMG also loses Race Mode, launch control and dynamic engine mounts. But with this facelift (effect two years ago), it does not lose the electronically actuated limited slip rear differential. In the past it got a mechanically actuated LSD that reacted to inputs and situations, making the transition from grip to slip rather sudden. The electronic diff is almost predictive, and makes the switch from open to closed quicker, thus making it easier to apply the necessary steering correction to catch the slide. The LSD is crucial in making the C 63 a riot machine, sending power to both the rear tyres and allowing them to keeping spinning and sliding. In contrast, an open differential would feed more power to the tyre with less grip thus leading to the other tyre regaining traction and killing the slide.
That’s the theory. In practice, well, it all works like a bomb. When you have 476bhp, 34bhp makes no difference whatsoever. Not once did I feel the C 63 lacking in power compared to what I remember of the C 63 S AMG. And the Coupe slides like a beauty. Let’s be honest, I did spin it a couple of times as my right foot struggled to wake up from the eight weeks lock down, but once I figured out that full gas only resulted in a spin (and pussyfooting made it corner like on rails), I began playing with the throttle. Kick the tail out in second, short shift to third, feed the torque — not too much, not too little — and ride the wave to keep the rear spinning, sliding, and oversteering like a demon. With its tyres alight, that’s the only way to drive the C 63. And I’m happy to report there is no toning down, no diminishing, no dilution of the core strength of the C 63. Its ability to play the hooligan.