You are looking at the most powerful Mercedes E-Class there has ever been. You are also looking at one of the fastest, most technically complex saloon cars ever built. So you can imagine this makes the new Mercedes-AMG E 63 some kind of a weapon, even beside the likes of the BMW M5 or any of Audi’s various RS models.
For starters, the £75,000 E 63 boasts either 563bhp in standard form or a whopping 604bhp in £83,000 S guise, as tested here, courtesy of its tweaked 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine. It also has 750Nm or 850Nm of torque, depending which model you go for, and all versions come with AMG’s new 4MATIC+ intelligent four-wheel-drive system. There’s a new nine-speed dual-clutch gearbox and launch control set-up, too.
As a result, the 1,955kg E 63 can tear its way from 0-62mph in a claimed 3.5 seconds (the S is a tenth faster), while top speed is limited to 155mph, unless you spec the optional ‘de-limit’ package, in which case this rises to a still-restricted 186mph.
Also new for the twin-turbo V8 is cylinder deactivation that cuts four cylinders when cruising in Comfort mode, which helps to deliver genuine 30mpg economy. Emissions of just 199g/km are nothing short of extraordinary for a car that develops such vast amounts of power, torque and performance, either.
On the move, the E 63 has a vast range of abilities, depending which mode you choose to drive it in. The dynamic menu consists of Comfort, Sport, Sport +, Race and Individual, in which the driver can choose any mix of settings to alter the steering, throttle map, exhaust, gearchange, diff response and even the ESP intervention.
• Executive car of the year 2016: Mercedes E-Class
It sounds complex, perhaps, but in practice it means the E 63 can be virtually all things to all men dynamically. And it has great seats, lovely steering, top-notch build quality and a genuinely decent amount of space front and rear, no matter which mode you select.
At the press of one button, the E 63 can be transformed from a comfortable luxury saloon that rides and steers as serenely as an E 220 d into a super fast-responding, ultra-precise sports saloon that has instant throttle response, a wild exhaust note complete with crackles and pops on the overrun, and absolutely outrageous acceleration.
The E 63 also handles, stops and steers with quite brilliant precision, too. For a car that weighs nearly two tonnes, it is phenomenally sharp to drive in anything other than Comfort mode, especially on a track in Race mode, which is where you’d expect it to fall apart what with all that weight and inertia.
Perhaps the E 63’s biggest party piece is its new Drift mode, which can be accessed via the dynamic menu. The maker says it is only ever to be used on a track – to a point where Mercedes UK representatives have suggested that there may even be insurance consequences if owners engage Drift mode on the public road; they say that it will ‘probably’ end up being down to each individual to clarify their personal cover.
Whatever the outcome, the E 63 becomes fully rear-wheel drive when Drift mode is engaged. And it’ll only engage if you also switch off the traction control and put the gearbox in manual. At which point the E 63 turns into the true madman its raw numbers have suggested. To be fair, it still develops an astonishing amount of grip and traction, and remains remarkably well poised, despite all that energydoing its best to melt the rear tyres.
It’s some machine, the new E 63. Not just the most advanced sports saloon there has ever been, but also currently the best.
- Price: £83,000
- Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power/torque: 604bhp/850Nm
- Transmission: Nine-speed dual-clutch auto, four-wheel drive
- 0-62mph: 3.4 seconds
- Top speed: 186mph
- Economy/CO2: 31.0mpg/207g/km
- On sale: January