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SPECIAL: Mercedes’ Art of Noise
Written by:
Howard Walker
RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com
RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com
03/28/2008 - 01:36 PM
Tampa, Fla.
With sound to match its fury, you'll want to drive with the windows down. » More Photos
Vin Diesel gargling with roofing nails couldn’t sound this rude. It’s the sound of an attitudinally-challenged Alaskan grizzly. With a migraine. It’s big-block Detroit iron played through quad-pipe Bose surround sound.
If its creators had any sense, they’d install a digital dashboard readout that, with each twist of the ignition, flashed-up the words “For optimal aural pleasure, drive only with windows lowered.”
Windows down, tach needle sweeping past the four-grand mark, and this Teutonic tenor rips the air with the kind of sonorous snarl that could wake the dead.
And for icing on the cacophonous cake, there’s nothing that will tingle your spine, or snap at your synapses more than the verrapp-verrapp of the exhaust as computer wizardry blips the throttle on downshifts.
Welcome to the world of Mercedes-Benz’ C63 AMG. Call it perfection in the art of noise.
For me, this is the most convincing AMG offering yet. It’s Merc’s middle finger salute to BMW’s latest M3. It’s the dagger to the heart to Lexus’ new wannabe rocketship IS-F. It’s the knee in the nuts to Audi’s tire-fryin’ RS4.
With sound to match its fury, you'll want to drive with the windows down. » More Photos
Talk about grunt. Shoehorned beneath that twin power-domed hood is 6.2 liters of AMG’s finest eight-banger with power and torque numbers that set the new gold standard in this class. Even the most power-hungry among you should be wowed by the 6.2’s corral of 451 horses – especially when you compare it to the 414-hp of the new M3, and the 416-hp of the Lexus IS-F.
But the real killer figure here is 443, which is the number of stump-extracting pound-feet of torque the AMG lump can summon up. And what’s even more impressive is that at least 370 lb-ft comes on stream from just 2000rpm.
That makes it wickedly, ballistically, fearsomely quick. As in standstill to 60 in a searing 4.3 seconds – 3.9 seconds if you trust Car and Driver’s numbers. Zero to 100? How about 9.7 seconds. And the forward motion won’t quit until the speed-limiter has the motor stuttering at 151mph.
Bolted to the back of the V8 is Merc’s bolt action seven-speed auto, with paddle shifters attached to the back of the steering wheel to help you with the shifting. What, no manual box? Trust me, you don’t need one.
That’s because the transmission comes with three different shift modes – full manual, which means what it says and won’t shift up until you command it to; ‘sport’, which fires off changes with AK-47 efficiency and downshifts with that oh-so-sexy throttle blip. And ‘comfort’ for no-brainer cruising and molasses-smooth shifting.
While the layout of the C63’s suspension is basically the same as the C-class ordinaire, it’s had the kind of extreme makeover that Ty Pennington bloke would be proud of.
With sound to match its fury, you'll want to drive with the windows down. » More Photos
The springs and shocks are stiffer, the anti-roll bars are beefed up, the track’s widened by 1.4 inches and the ride height is lowered. Even the steering has been massaged with a faster rack requiring just 2.4 turns to sweep from lock to lock.
And the folks at AMG have kindly endowed this new hot rod Benz with the kind of brakes that could stop time. Up front are 13-inch vented rotors, 11.8 at the back, with six-piston calipers doing the clamping. Stand on them at 70mph and in just 150 feet you’ll be stationary – no doubt with a mild ripple placed in the earth’s crust.
Not doubt with the new M3 in its cross-hairs, the performance meisters at AMG toiled long and hard to give the C63 some special skill sets in the handling department. Its steering, for example, feels hard-wired into the driver’s gray-matter. Think and it shalt steer. There’s a level of precision and feedback here that’s above anything AMG or the parent company has previously offered, Black Series CLK included. Turn-in is surgically precise, and
With sound to match its fury, you'll want to drive with the windows down. » More Photos
Of course, to find out what goes on at the raggedy edge, you need a track. To that end, Mercedes kindly arranged for us to take a few hot laps at Phoenix’s Firebird Raceway’s snaky 1.1-mile West Track road course.
For the C63, AMG has completely re-programmed its ESP system to provide a better range of traction control settings that go from mild to wild.
In ‘normal’ it keeps everything in line and does a nice job of easing the throttle rather than snapping it closed when the back end breaks loose. Perfect for daily driver road use.
At the opposite end, AMG lets you switch the system off completely. Hooray. Perfect for lurid, tire-fryin’ slides on the racetrack; but mildly terrifying and loose cannon-like on the public road.
But the intermediate ‘Sport’ setting is as good as it gets. At Firebird, you could get the rear end sliding like a drift champ, but before things got too out of line it would discreetly and seamlessly reel you back in. Call that fun with a capital ‘F’.
Some of my colleagues who’ve tested the Benz on roads other than Arizona’s pool table-smooth blacktop have carped about the car’s overly stiff ride. I found it firm, but not excessively so. But I wouldn’t recommend rushing out to get the $3,900 Performance Package with its even stiffer springing (along with even mightier brakes and a limited slip diff).
For those eco-weenies worried about the effect super sedans like the C63 have on the planet, now might be a good time to turn away. That’s because even moderately paced city driving is unlikely to yield more than 12 miles to the gallon. Highway driving isn’t much better at 19. And, start tap dancing on that right pedal and 10 or 11 is what’s to be expected. Concerned? Go buy a Prius.
With sound to match its fury, you'll want to drive with the windows down. » More Photos
If the story so far has your juices flowing, wait till you climb aboard and settle behind that C63’s cool-looking flat-bottomed helm. Those front seats are little short of magical. All that side bolstering clamps you in place like a Hulk Hogan body lock.
And it’s not just at the sides; there’s terrific support right on your shoulder blades. True, I wouldn’t want to be 300 pounds and looking to get comfy. But 95 percentiles will be deliriously happy.
The rest of the Merc’s cabin is beautifully crafted with gorgeous leather, fine stitching, easy-on-the-eye instruments and impressive quality. All that black leather and vinyl does make the cockpit appear like the inside of Madonna’s wardrobe, though. It’s in keeping with the car’s stealthy image, but I’d go for the tan leather.
Less convincing are the exterior add-ons. There’s something vaguely Pep Boy-ish about that whole front bumper/spoiler thing with its shark-gill side vents and crater-like recesses for the driving lamps. And the rocker-panel extensions may be real aids to aero, but they scream ‘plastic body kit’. At least they resisted the temptation to bolt a wing to the trunk lid.
But if there’s a real, genuine surprise in all this, it’s the C63’s sticker. Six months ago at the car’s Frankfurt Show debut, we were betting $60k. At least. But a little competition from the $55,875 M3 four-door and the $56,765 Lexus IS-F has seen Mercedes come in with a price tag of $54,625. With the dollar-euro exchange rates where they are right now, that’s Kmart Blue Light Special pricing.
That alone is worth making a whole lot of noise about.
Tampa-based writer Howard Walker has been covering the auto beat for more than 30 years. Former editor of Britain's Motor magazine and Editor-in-Chief of Classic & Sportscar, Walker now reports on the U.S. auto scene for more than a dozen international publications. He also edits the duPont Registry's Exotic Car Guide.
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