First Drive Review
AMG’s Tobias Moers is one wicked mother, and his cars aren’t far behind. Moers is head of vehicle development for AMG. A classic German performance engineer—stern, compact build—he likes his machinery loud and sideways. Shortly after driving the new C63 AMG Black Series at its Laguna Seca press launch—nine hot laps only, and street driving verboten—your author walked up to Moers and asked him his official title. He stared back blankly, as if I had just told him my name was Big Bird. “I’ve had different titles,” Moers said, arms crossed. “Frankenstein was one of them.” No smile.
Witness the monster the doctor has birthed: Like all Black Series cars, the C63 Black is effectively a standard Mercedes—in this case a C63 coupe—sent to hell and back. The latter’s basic profile remains, but virtually all the mechanical bits have been tweaked or replaced in the name of track velocity. Forged 19-inch, nine-inch-wide alloys sit inside fattened front fenders; the rear rollers live beneath gargantuan flares and are another half-inch wider. Front track is 1.6 inches greater than on a standard C63, and rear track blossoms by 3.1 inches. Stiffened springs, fatter anti-roll bars, and adjustable spring perches are mated to two-way adjustable dampers. Thanks in part to the lightweight wheels and lack of a back seat—it’s available if you want it—curb weight drops by a claimed 235 pounds, although we bet the difference will end up being a little less, putting the C63 Black at about 3800 pounds.
We’ll Show You Crazy…
Still, the truly insane bit lives under the hood. Like the ordinary C63, the Black Series uses a version of AMG’s mad M156 V-8, the same naturally aspirated, 6.2-liter piece that powers the SLS. It’s even closer to the SLS engine here than in its other applications, borrowing—as does the standard C63 with its optional Development package—the gullwing’s lighter crankshaft and forged pistons and connecting rods. With a new engine-control unit, it produces 510 hp at 6800 rpm, 59 more than the standard C63, 29 more than Development pack cars, and 53 horses down on the SLS. The engine now redlines at 7200 rpm, a 400-rpm jump from that of the regular C63. Torque rises slightly, from 443 to 457 lb-ft, although peak grunt still arrives at 5000 rpm.
The whole mess sounds like a DTM racer that ate a few hundred Chevrolet small-blocks for breakfast. Mercedes says the 0-to-60-mph sprint is accomplished in 4.2 seconds, a claim we weren’t able to verify but are inclined to believe applies only to cars in which two cylinders are breathing all-natural Vermont maple syrup. The car leaves the line like a methed-up ape (Wait, no—3800 pounds? Make that a methed-up studio apartment), and we clocked a basic C63 coupe to 60 in 3.7 seconds. Top speed is a claimed 186 mph, likely less when equipped with the optional rear wing.
The rest is predictable. In time-honored Mercedes-Benz fashion, there is no clutch pedal on offer, just Stuttgart’s seven-speed MCT automatic. (Twin-clutch boxes reportedly can’t handle the M156’s torque.) A slightly larger transmission cooler was installed because the regular C63 tends to go into gearbox limp mode when abused in hot weather. The brake rotors grow just over an inch front and rear. Thin-backed sport seats and red seatbelts—the better, presumably, to hide the bloodstains from your vanquished enemies—are standard. The rear half-shafts and limited-slip differential were swiped from the heavier E63, the diff given an external, fan-aided cooler.
…and You’ll Love It
Mercedes says the package can lap the Nürburgring in 7:43. It looks like undiluted mayhem or maybe the result of a bad accident involving a race shop and Satan’s school bus. If you don’t love it, have the nurse wake you from your coma. In our short lapping session, the C63 did absolutely nothing wrong. The steering feel is better than that of any Mercedes in recent memory, hefty and with just the right amount of meaty, big-car feedback. The engine pulls like blazes, with torque everywhere and a righteous, gut-punching thunder bark gushing from the pipes. The brake pedal is rock solid, gaining only a hair of travel when the discs get hot.
The chassis is balanced but takes patience to stay ahead of—the Mercedes’ pork is always obvious, and you can induce understeer or oversteer by piling on steering or gobs of throttle at the wrong moment. Moers’s madman handiwork is evident even in the differential, which boasts a whopping 50-percent lockup on deceleration. Stability during braking and turn-in is thus eye-opening; you can cram the C63 into corners with reckless abandon, DTM fantasies twitching through your toenails, your mistakes all but consequence-free. (Contrast this with the C63’s predecessor, the 2007–08 CLK63 Black Series, a raw behemoth that was both glorious and moderately homicidal at the limit. Fun stuff, right up until it kills you.)
All told, the refinement is the impressive bit. Big cars aren’t supposed to be total pussycats when you honk on them. The only real complaint is the seven-speed automatic, which offers a seemingly telepathic sport mode but reacts so slowly to paddle-shifter commands that you simply stop bothering and let the gearbox shift itself. A car this good should beg your involvement, even if that’s with buttons.
Black Series models don’t sell in big numbers, but that’s kind of the point—the line, remember, was named after the American Express Centurion card, offered only to those who buy Gulfstreams by the dozen. The CLK63 moved only 399 units in America. The C63 Black is said to be mostly sold out, and Mercedes claims fewer than 100 will be available stateside, at an estimated price of $125,000. Pity—this kind of insanity needs to be spread.
