New Merc with rock star appeal
Mercedes’s new four-door is a roaring, racing rock star of a beast, so get ready to be thrilled – and utterly terrified
My crazy (and thus far extremely sweaty) summer of nonstop events kicked off big time last week. First, there was the final of our 500 Words kids’ writing competition at the Tower Of London. Where, as always, our fairy godmother, Camilla, the Duchess Of Cornwall, was on hand to keep order. But who would have thought? It wasn’t any of the 50 excitable schoolchildren she had to chastise but acting veteran Derek Jacobi! Replying to my question, ‘Where do you think your fellow reader David Suchet’s huge voice comes from?’ he replied, ‘His b **** !’
Cue a mixture of stifled sniggering from the young ones and a potential cardiac arrest from anyone brandishing a BBC pass. ‘What to do with a naughty sort such as this, Ma’am?’ I pleaded of the duchess. ‘Off with his head,’ she replied, to yet more sniggering along with a collective sigh from BBC top brass.
Saturday saw chefs Tom Kerridge, Atul Kochhar and José Pizarro in a very nice walled garden producing the nicest al fresco food one could imagine, followed by Texas, Paloma Faith and Jeff Lynne’s ELO. All for Children In Need, all raising an incredible total of £1.7million.
Monday was quiet-ish. Tuesday the polar opposite, as Royal Ascot got under way. We live in Ascot, which is usually lovely. Except for one week a year when it turns into Made In Chelsea meets The Only Way Is Essex on steroids.
Wednesday was fab – the opening of Cliveden’s pop-up cinema season, with Cliveden itself starring in the first film, Scandal – some of the steamier chapters of the Profumo Affair having taken place in the shadows by the stunning outdoor pool.
Thursday: I was due to hop on my Piaggio MP3 500 Sport trike to beat the traffic down to Glastonbury for our live radio show on Friday morning. In between all of which a hulking great monster of a motor car turned up. ‘What the dickens is that?’ asked Mrs Evans.
‘Woah!’ that’s cool,’ exclaimed No.1 son. While No.2 son, looking befuddled, mused, ‘Daddy, why has it not been painted properly?’ The answers to which are... Wife: it’s the new MercedesAMG E63. No.1 son: correct. No.2 son: because some clever bod at Mercedes has figured out that not only does a dark satin cloak make it look like a rock star (which it is) but it also makes its five-metrelong chassis appear less daunting.
Welcome to aggression meets science, with the front of the car sculpted around the gaping air vents required to feed a pair of extremely thirsty twin turbos. As for the rear, the view other road users will get to see most, the eye is immediately drawn to the hulking great AMG rear diffuser and quad exhaust can trims. Sense an overarching theme developing here?
As much as the exterior is an early-warning system to any would-be predators to back off, the interior, by contrast, is a divine lesson in refined elegance. I only wish Aston Martin’s DB11 was more like this. As for BMW, I pity its designers – when they see just how high AMG has raised the bar, they will either faint on the spot or put in for an emergency sabbatical. We’re talking about dashing post-retro panache and audacity, so beautiful it will make you want to weep. Goddit?
AMGs have to scare the old folk and wake the dead while plugging the emotional void in the deeply flawed soul of their owners and this one is no different. Except it manages to do so by employing less engine capacity than ever before, down from a 5.5-litre V8 to a brandnew 4.0-litre V8. But guess what? There’s even more grunt, thanks to a pair of twin-scroll twin-turbos and various other tweaks that all combine to churn out a breathtaking 612hp. This incarnation is the most powerful four-door production saloon AMG has built thus far. And – shock, horror – the engineers even spent a day or two wrestling with their conscience and thinking about the polar bears. If the E63 suspects the driver is no longer trying to break the sound barrier on the way to the Chinese, it shuts off four of the eight
‘I FOUND MYSELF CLINGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE’