The AMG C63 S E Performance Is A Breathtaking Achievement I Can't Recommend You Buy

Driving the Mercedes-AMG C63 S E Performance, I couldn't help but imagine a confused German engineer sitting in the passenger seat, wondering why I wasn't having as much fun as its 671 horsepower should unlock. After all, as sports sedans go, you really can't question the latest C63's bonafides.

In a time of spiraling power and torque, with even mainstream crossover EVs delivering the sort of numbers once the preserve of "proper" sports cars, the old ways of ensuring speed are no longer sufficient. AMG's answer was, quite literally, a hybrid of the old and new methods. Gas, yes, for reasons that include avoiding range anxiety, but electric for its immediacy as well.

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Sometimes, though, recipes that should be successful aren't quite as delicious as you expect. I like the C-Class, and I like performance hybrids, and I really liked the S63 version, and yet all the superlatives here don't quite gel into something super.

In theory, you couldn't really ask for much more from the C63's drivetrain. Unveiled back in 2021, E Performance promised two flavors of plug-in hybrid, based around either a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four gas engine or a 4.0-liter biturbo V8. To that, AMG paired an electric drive unit and a high-performance battery.

While the gas engine is at the front, and the electric drive at the rear, a drive shaft linking the two means electric power can contribute to the front wheels, too. That's in contrast to many other all-wheel drive hybrids, which treat the front and rear drive as two pretty much separate systems.

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Finally, AMG throws in a belt-driven starter-alternator, electric exhaust-gas turbo, and a 9-speed transmission at the front, along with a 2-speed transmission, small but speedily charging/discharging battery, and limited-slip differential at the rear. The result is a whopping 671 horsepower and 752 lb-ft of torque.

The specs certainly weigh out AMG's engine decisions. Compared to its predecessor's old V8, there's 168 hp and 236 lb-ft more, here. The claimed 3.3 second 0-60 mph time is a full half-second swifter than before. And the C63 E-Performance can even drive on electric power alone, albeit only for a faintly comical EPA-rated 3 miles.

Nobody is confusing this near-six-figure sedan for a Prius PHEV rival, then. Hit the accelerator and the pace is monstrous: the pedal need not be to the carpet for passengers to become mutinous from discomfort. AMG promised something bestial, a high-tech rejoinder to those stubbornly clinging to large-displacement gas engines alone, and the C63 undoubtedly delivers that.

Fast can be fun, though, but I'm sorry to have to tell that German engineer that here, it's simply not enough.

This is a heavy car, with a 4,817 pound curb weight. That's closing in on the heft of a GLE 4MATIC SUV but, more important, it's over 900 pounds greater than the old C63 sedan. AMG's fix is all that extra power, but physics is a little more complicated.

The adaptive suspension is firm, even in Comfort mode. Dial into the sportier settings — Mercedes does have a huge, dash-dominating touchscreen, but there are at least handy shortcuts dangling from the steering wheel for the key performance settings — and it became uncomfortably stiff. Counterproductive, too, slamming and jerking when I roamed into the backroads with their charmingly unpredictable surfaces.

Race mode — the sedan at its most potent — sheds all pretense at smooth compliance, both for the suspension and the aggressiveness of the hybrid system. Great for the track (or carefully-selected roads); not for Michigan asphalt. Individual mode, which allows a custom configuration of things like suspension and drivetrain eagerness, came to the rescue, allowing me to dial in softer springs without giving up on the overall urgency.

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It's one of a host of settings and adjustments that AMG offers, arguably too many. There are multiple levels of regenerative braking, and options to mimic a rear-wheel drive car for tail-drifting playtime. The C63 is a plug-in hybrid, but though there's a Battery Hold option to retain its charge in order to use its meager EV range later, the sedan does a good job at always making sure there's enough charge in the battery to drive enthusiastically.

It seems churlish, when you have 671 horses to play with, to complain about how the C63 sounds. And yet, unless you're regularly taking your cars to a track, you could make a reasonable argument that audio performance is equal in importance to actual speed, at least for everyday use. Hear me out...

Jab the AMG's go-fast pedal and, within very short order, you're probably breaking the law. In city driving, your opportunities for point-and-squirt fun err very much on the side of minimal squirt. The same goes for highway driving, where even fairly aggressive overtaking maneuvers rarely make even moderate demands on the E Performance drivetrain.

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At times when rival sports sedans would already be gleefully shouting, though, the AMG is stuffily uptight. Even when you really do hoof it, the turbo-four isn't a patch on the grunting, roaring, burbling majesty of a V8. Since most of your driving won't be stressing the C63's speed reserves, it seems a shame you don't even get a fun soundtrack to distract you.

The C63's gravest misstep, perhaps, was not so much drinking the F1 Kool-Aid but confusing the flavor. Formula 1 is certainly a spectacle, not to mention a technological tour de force, but its focus is undoubtedly on going fast. F1 cars, therefore, are pampered, single-purpose beasts, and while fans might argue about the soundtrack, compromising performance to improve it just isn't a legitimate consideration.

AMG certainly captured that speed-above-all-else ethos: the C63 is blisteringly fast in a straight line. But buyers of sports sedans still expect some degree of ride comfort, and to be serenaded aurally, and all of the other factors — bragging rights included — that modern performance vehicles for consumers are graded on.

The geek in me loves the AMG C63 S E Performance. It's genuinely clever: a triumph of mechanics, taking propulsion complexity and weaving from that something shocking. On paper, or the slides of some Stuttgart engineer, it's beguiling and undoubtedly special.

I can't quite get so enthusiastic from behind the wheel, though. Four-cylinder engines can sound great, but this one doesn't. Heavy cars can mask their weight, but this one struggles to. I can't help but think that AMG, in its eagerness to dance the line between gas and electric, got mesmerized by the technology and forgot about the real people actually buying its cars.

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At least all signs point to a correction fast approaching. The details vary, but the rumors suggest a 2026 revamp of the C63 swapping the turbo-four for a turbo-six, more akin to the AMG E53 Hybrid. Still hybrid-electric, and still not a V8, but certainly going some way to address the unsurprising sniffiness with which fans have viewed this current PHEV.