We’ve been seeing spy shots of the upcoming Mercedes-AMG C63 E Performance for quite some time now, but as it turns out, the car actually made its debut in the metal at last week’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. Granted, the car is still camouflaged in the same print Mercedes used for the AMG GT 63 S E Performance, but it’s much more revealing than the any of the wraps we’ve seen on the prototypes so far. That being said, what’s visible is just about exactly what we expected: larger intakes, a wider body, multispoke wheels framing bigger brakes, rectangular quad exhaust tips, and more aggressive bumper designs.
The biggest news with this car, though,
the news that enthusiasts everywhere have been dreading, is that it will ditch
the V8 in favor of a hybridized turbo four-cylinder. The silver lining is that
as confirmed by the sign next to the car, it will make a whopping 671 hp and 750 Nm of torque, which is 168 hp and 50 Nm more than the outgoing C63 S‘s 4.0-liter biturbo V8.
470 hp of that power
comes from the engine, a modified version of the M139 turbocharged 2.0-liter
inline-four found in Mercedes’ “45 S” models, while the other 201 hp comes from an electric motor mounted at the rear axle. The
four-cylinder also weighs 49 kg less than the old V8, so it should
contribute to a better handling car overall, and it sends its power to all four
wheels by way of a nine-speed automatic transmission and Mercedes-AMG’s 4MATIC+
performance AWD system.
The fact that this new four-cylinder alone
makes the same power as the old non-S V8 is a huge feat in and of itself, let
alone the kind of power it makes when coupled with the hybrid system, and it
really shows the lengths Mercedes is willing to go through to help people
forget the loss of those extra four cylinders.
