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Test Drive Mercedes-AMG C 63 S E Performance: Summit of the T-Models

“Snowy Top” was the name Mercedes-Benz gave to an event in Hochgurgl, where a large portion of the electrified plug-in passenger car all-wheel program was brought together. Its wildest representative was clearly the C63s AMG, here as an T-Model. It uses the electric motor for EVEN MORE power. And the all-wheel drive to get it onto the road or, respectively, the snow.

Much snow plowed: The Mercedes-AMG C63s as an Estate model after the summit climb at the Timmelsjoch:
Much snow plowed: The Mercedes-AMG C63s as an Estate model after the summit climb at the Timmelsjoch:
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While the rest of the electrified Mercedes-Benz plug-in fleet waited silently for departure, the AMG C63s rumbled quietly to itself: The instructors had already pre-selected the sport program for it to go onto the partially icy and freshly snow-covered track with a bit more wheelspin. That means: The 2.0-liter turbo gasoline engine growls and melts the snow on and around the C63s with its waste heat...

Wheelspin? With the AMG C63s, more like "wildspin"

Slightly spinning rear wheels can be very useful, especially in tight corners, to drift out of them – which we did, especially as we were encouraged to do it once with and once without ESP. One should be particularly careful in the AMG C63s, as the right foot controls up to 500 kW and 1,020 Nm of system power. This is made up of the front-mounted 350-kW 2.0-liter turbo gasoline engine, which is disliked by the cast iron AMG fans for lacking four cylinders for the real 63 sound according to them. And directly on the rear axle, the electric motor pushes with an additional 150 kW. Here, too, enough waste heat is generated that a separate cooling system is needed for the small 6.1 kWh lithium-ion battery, as it always needs to be kept in the rather narrow optimal temperature range to ensure it can always provide enough energy for sprints. Yes, one could drive up to eleven kilometers purely electrically, but that's not really the intention, because AMG uses electrification for boosting, not saving. That’s why the battery was also developed with the AMG Formula 1 forge "High Performance Powertrains" in Affalterbach.

The AMG C63s can be neither joyless nor economical

There, the internal combustion engine was also assembled – always strictly according to the motto: One engine, one mechanic, whose name is then immortalized on a plaque – in our case Maximilian Beez. The fact that the subtly thundering C-Class still consumes a generous 7.3 l/100 km plus 12.2 kWh/100 km according to WLTP indicates that it was not designed for economy. With an empty battery, it states 10.5 l/100 km, which can only be achieved if you dawdle joylessly overland...that's why the blue wagon doesn't have an E-license plate.

And what can the C63s do in the snow: Wild swishing! In fact, we can still drive other models up and down the same track over the course of the day, but none is as boisterous and loud as this blue wagon, which always draws attention to itself with its rumblings among the platoon of quiet part- and full-time electrics. But that's exactly why it's usually bought. And given that its predecessor still carried the V8, the current model, which is actually minimally more economical, naturally struggles even more to thunder against its soundstorm – even if the four-cylinder was acoustically roughened noticeably.

In fact, it behaves significantly more capriciously in tight curves than the others, as it always needs a blink of an eye to gather charge air after corners – by which time we've already pressed the gas pedal a bit harder and then the rear suddenly comes around and you briefly wish for even more direct steering to catch the load again – which would be too nervous in everyday life – because the wagon is already nervous anyway. And despite the battery weight and the electric motor on the rear axle, the C63s has a damn light rear, which we happily let swing out in ever greater drift angles. Going uphill with up to 11 percent gradient, the merry snow plowing costs an infinite amount of fuel: the display shows a solid over 70 l/100 km and the range indicator reports a ridiculous 330 kilometers for the internal combustion engine and eleven for the electric motor...

On dry roads, we could crack the 100 km/h mark in 3.4 seconds and go up to 280 regulated km/h, but on ice, the 680 horsepower requires a lot of finesse to then be able to play with them all the more splendidly.

It can also be whisper-quiet – purely electric

And since we have to be a bit more cautious going downhill anyway, we temporarily switch off the combustion engine here and flow along with the remaining 150 kW – and the consumption drops even faster than the altitude meters: after just under ten kilometers, we've already halved it, which actually does our conscience quite well...

 

The Burmester premium sound system naturally sounds even stronger than the screaming four-cylinder, whose rough sound we find quite well composed. On the contrary: this somewhat crazy mixture of a four-cylinder plug-in estate and a razor-sharp sports blade can really be captivating, even if you now have to drive around at least 2.1 tons of curb weight. The trunk volume remains rather "sporty" at 375 to 1,375 liters, also due to the slightly higher loading floor, but it is variable. This "wild combination" in the truest sense of the word cost from 115,087.16 euros on the 5th of December, by the way... which we quietly parked back among the "tame" relatives after the wild ride.

What does that mean?

The community has already broken the rod over the C63 – for them, the hybridized four-cylinder with E-Boost is not a replacement for the V8 predecessor. We wouldn't quite agree with that objectively: Especially as an estate model, it is an extremely wild mix that is quite unique – but you have to be able and willing to afford it. And it could differentiate itself from the usual AMG clientele precisely because of that….

Translated automatically from German.
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