The old-school but high-tech Mercedes-Benz AMG GT 63
Mercedes-Benz’s performance division AMG has produced a new two seater high performance coupe that is back to the best of the past
In a taxi in a European city recently, I was party to a rather poignant scenario. We were stopped at the traffic lights, and two young local guys were in the lane alongside, in a VW Golf GTI, and iconic car for any aspiring car enthusiast.
They had plainly pimped it up to make it faster, with a loud exhaust and an engine that sounded screamier than the original. They were playing around, revving the engine, ready to screech off at the lights. My taxi was electric, a comfortable bland machine whose manufacturer I can’t recall. When the lights changed green, the young men alongside us screeched forward with a chirp of tyres and zing of engine and exhaust.
The Mercedes-Benz AMG GT 63 in action, crossing mountainous terrain
My taxi driver, with a hint of amusement, simply extended his foot in his electric family car we cruised severely passed them, their little sports car desperately sounding like it was trying to keep up as the taxi wafted down the road gaining pace rapidly but with seemingly no effort, and in silence.
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This made me ponder. That coming weekend, I was due to take delivery of an AMG GT 63, a petrol powered touring car several leagues above the little Golf GTI I had seen on my business trip. But still, however fast a car is, there is always an electric car, often a very bland booking one, that is much faster, simply because of the physics of electric propulsion.
‘There is something unashamedly old school about it [but] of course it has an excellent touchscreen information and entertainment system, all the latest safety gadgets, and a hi-fi system’
So what is the point of a V8 petrol powered grand touring car like the AMG GT, which once would have had its own performance as its starring factor?
Within minutes of getting behind the seat of the AMG I had a strong inkling of the answer.
But, let’s look at the car itself. Produced entirely by Mercedes-Benz’s high performance division, AMG, there is something unashamedly old school about it.
Of course it has an excellent touchscreen information and entertainment system, all the latest safety gadgets, and a hi-fi system that makes you think you are in the Vienna Opera House.
But anyone can do that in a car these days.
A front view of the GT 63
What’s the GT has, in container-loads, is character and soul. You sit low and deep alongside your passenger, with a couple of tiny seats behind you indicating that family values perhaps are not of the highest concern for the driver and passenger.
Stab the button, and the engine comes to life a bit like waking up an Italian mastiff (or should that be a German mastiff?). No silent gliding here.
The car rumbles along the road, sounding and feeling much more like one of those overpowered muscle car coops from a 1960s movie than anything from the 2020s. The steering feels organic and real, rather than like you are playing with a game console joystick, which is sadly what a lot of cars these days feel like.
Just like every other car sold today, the steering is electric – you are not actually, controlling a mechanism that turns the wheels, you are simply sending a signal to an electrical program – but AMG have done a superb job in making you think otherwise.
‘This is not the kind of car you get into, cruise down the road and then 20 minutes later look in astonishment at the speed and realise you were going much faster than you thought. It’s a car with a feeling of speed’
It gather speed in bursts with its muscular V8 engine, and most importantly lets you know it is doing so. This is not the kind of car you get into, cruise down the road and then 20 minutes later look in astonishment at the speed and realise you were going much faster than you thought. It’s a car with a feeling of speed.
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The same applies to the handling, which gives you all the sensations of cornering properly, including delightful feedback when turning in to a bend and, despite the car’s safety first four-wheel-drive, a real feeling that it could do one of those cop car swivels around the corner if you press the accelerate too hard at the wrong/right time. (It won’t, unless you turn all the safety systems off, for which you will need the skills of an advanced computer hacker.)
The AMG GT 63 is a contemporary sports car with the character of the great grand tourers of the past
It’s an interior full of sporting intent: nobody will get into the car alongside you and assume they are just in another set of wheels. It makes a statement, saying: This is my car I bought to drive, properly, while everyone else is wafting around in fear of speed limits and legislation.
If it feels a bit out of place in today’s roster of new cars, that’s because it has deliberately bucked a trend, perhaps more surprising coming from a manufacturer so devoted to electrification as it’s parent company Mercedes-Benz. There’s a soul in the company that invented the car, and it is manifesting itself in the AMG GT.
Does it have any drawbacks? Well, it’s a long, low car with it effectively only two seats, although you could perhaps sedate your children and stick them in the back. It does have a decent boot/trunk space, but of course it is not as convenient or easy as an electric taxi. That’s why exists, and you should buy one, although unlike ours, we would recommend a more poppy colour to make the exterior, which is slick but not exceptional, stand out more. Racing yellow or orange, perhaps. Or frog green. Do it while you can.
