Mercedes-AMG E53 Cabriolet 2020 first drive

As facelifts go, this is one of the milder ones we’ll be reporting on this year. The Mercedes-AMG 53, the half-fat AMG model with the fancy clever six-cylinder mild-hybrid engine, has been given a small makeover that applies to the saloon, wagon and cabriolet versions. We’ve been able to drive the cabriolet.

You might note there’s a new grille – more reminiscent of AMG's angrier cars. With a revised bumper, too, it reduces drag (and therefore wind noise) at the front and there are flatter-looking rear lights. Throw in new wheel designs and you’ve largely got a measure of the exterior changes.

Interior alterations are pretty subtle: the latest-generation infotainment software uses a familiar rotary touchpad on the centre console and touchscreen on the dashboard's centre, so what’s new is the steering wheel with double-height horizontal spokes, each with an array of haptic feedback buttons. 

Suspension revisions come in, too, but they’re slight. Air suspension has been retuned to ‘broaden’ the performance of the car, which I think means ‘make it a bit more comfortable’, although a Dynamic Plus pack, featuring a drift mode, and carbon-composite brakes, becomes available as an option.

The engine and transmission on the ’53 remain unchanged: a 3.0-litre straight-six turbocharged and electric-supercharged unit making 423bhp and 295lb ft, with a 348V starter/alternator adding 21bhp but 184lb ft low down the rev range. It drives all four wheels (drift mode aside) through a nine-speed gearbox.

Inside, the changes make not too much difference to the E53. The steering wheel is a nice size and shape, but otherwise it’s as-you-were – comfortable and large front seats, good fit and finish and, in this cabriolet version, quick hood operation but not so much space in the back or boot as a four-door.

And it drives well, too. The ride is reasonable, steering anodyne but well weighted. There’s nothing engaging about the way it rides or handles in normal conditions but this is the soft-top, after all. It’s feasible a saloon or wagon, stiffer of shell as they’ll be, would give more back.

If anything, in here I’d want fewer drive modes and drive options and a less overwhelming instrument cluster and info – this is only a ’53, after all, not the ’63, and a cabriolet at that – but Mercedes is seemingly on a tech- and info-overload mission. So perhaps customers like it that way.