C63

“Always a bridesmaid” has always summed up Mercedes’s BMW-fighting performance sedans. And while the latest C63 still doesn’t upstage the M3, this Bridesmaid of Frankenstein deserves a bouquet for effort.

Like that other hair-raising creature, the Mercedes is a flamboyant screamer with a hand-built heart, a 451-horsepower V-8. It doesn’t just defy Mercedes’ conservative, subtle traditions, but obliterates them in a car that’s always making a spectacle of itself.

Compared with its predecessor, the 362-horsepower C55, the C63 is more than a smallish sedan with a really big engine. A wider front and rear track than the standard C-Class — together with AMG brakes that defuse the car’s hefty weight of nearly two tons — keep the C63 mostly in charge of its overwhelming forces. Those include a 3.9-second eruption to 60 m.p.h. and a 12.3-second quarter-mile run.

Like other AMG models with this big-bore V-8 — there are now eight in all — the C63 makes a noise that you can’t believe is coming from a Mercedes. When I drove the C63 at Pocono Speedway, the engine’s impact made people jump involuntarily. Among a group of cars gathered for media testing, only a Dodge Viper could compete mano-a-mano with the C63 in sheer angry decibels.



The Mercedes’s racy flat-bottomed steering wheel is quick and sensitive, and the 7-speed paddle-shift transmission — while annoyingly busy in automatic mode — offers a rocking good time. The BMW and Cadillac win points for offering a manual transmission, but there’s no such choice in the Mercedes.


Mercedes models were once notorious for electronic stability control systems that, like a jealous chaperone, intervened at the first hint of fun. No more: the system can be shut off entirely, making the Mercedes a hooligan’s delight. Whether any actual hooligans can afford a $60,000 car is another question.



The Mercedes seats, snugly bolstered yet comfortable, strike me as the best in this class. But even those posh chairs aren’t able to insulate you from the horrific low-speed ride. On the rocky streets of Philadelphia, the stiffly sprung Benz dealt kidney punches like Rocky Balboa.

The Mercedes tries to outmuscle the BMW with an engine that’s half again as large. Yet the Benz ultimately isn’t as quicksilver and satisfying as the Bimmer.

The C63 can also guzzle like a reprobate ’60s muscle car, with a 12 m.p.g. thirst for premium during my testing. But considering how fast the Mercedes can fly, it’s better to watch the speedometer than the fuel needle.

Gallery:2009 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG