Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Top Speed

Anger-management therapy seeks to help control emotion. Anger will not control us, anger will not define us, just count backwards from 10—that sort of thing. Mercedes-AMG doesn’t appear to be interested in any of that. Fine by us. We like an angry AMG, and the angrier the better, in fact, and no car better personified vehicular anger than

The V-8 makes 469 horsepower and 479 lb-ft of torque in the basic C63. Pay a bit more—figure $10K or so, although pricing hasn’t been announced yet—and AMG will send more air into the engine to the tune of 503 horsepower and 516 lb-ft. Four variations of the 6.2-liter were previously available, making from 451 to 510 horsepower, but the turbocharged V-8 makes more torque than all of them. Weight may be down from the nearly 4000-pound curb weight of the old C63, but we won’t know for sure until we park the car on our own scales; for now, we estimate the U.S. version of the new C63 to come in at right about 4000 pounds.

Numbers Game

For those with an interest in top speed, the C63 S’s is a governed 180 mph, while the regular car hits an electronic wall at 155. Both variations have a seven-speed automatic with a multiclutch pack instead of a torque converter. Launch control is standard and makes claimed 3.9- and 4.0-second runs to 60 mph easy and repeatable. Shifts are quick but without the instantaneous snap of the dual-clutch seven-speed in the AMG GT. Wheel-mounted paddles can override the gearbox’s software and there’s a manual mode that will provide additional control. BMW’s M3 continues to offer the ultimate one-mode gear-ratio control device, the six-speed manual transmission. It might not be as quick as a modern automatic, but there’s no computer between you and the transmission. There’s never been a C63 with a three-pedal manual, and that makes us a little angry.