Mercedes-Benz S 63 AMG first drive

The new Mercedes-Benz S 63 AMG: the £119,565 answer to your supercar-fast, luxury-segment contender question. Oh, you weren’t asking? Well, Mercedes would appreciate it if you got a bit more inquisitive; AMG is aiming to sell more than 30,000 cars annually before too long, and that means every one of them – including its limo-size saloon – is going to need to count.

Admittedly the market for this particular model is going to be extremely small. The previous Mercedes-Benz S-Class – a peach – found nearly 90 per cent of its business in oil burning form, and the sixth generation of it will likely prove no different. Even if you’ve got a particular hankering for serious petrol power, you have to leapfrog the very good S 500 L, at £86,840, to get to the S 63.

The S 500 L also has a turbocharged V8 engine, but what it doesn’t have – and this, frankly, is the key to grasping the AMG’s appeal – is the hand-built, 5.5-litre biturbo V8. With 577bhp. And 664lb ft from 2250rpm. Which, despite the two-tonne greatcoat, is capable of launching this S-dlass to 62mph in 4.4sec via the seven-speed Speedshift MCT, and on to 186mph if you’ve been clever with your choices on the options list.

Now, for the rest of Europe if not the UK, the manufacturer has decked the long-wheelbase S 63 (the only version available to us Brits) with its 4Matic all-wheel drive system, but as the right-hand-drive layout negates its deployment here, we get rear-drive only. Thanks to the dubious condition of our roads we also receive Mercedes’ new, technically highfalutin, ride-improving Magic Body Control as standard.

Its cause is helped along by a familiar spot of weight loss: the new model is around 100kg lighter than its predecessor thanks to forged 19-inch alloy wheels, composite brake discs, a lithium ion battery and a carbonfibre lining for the boot floor, and the diet plan is complemented by the inevitably bespoke AMG take on the S-class’s sophisticated multi-link suspension setup.

Fast, cultured, cleverly pitched and possibly a little too well mannered for its own good. Some of the talent on display is clearly inherited; your eyes and rear end will register the flared air intakes and superb AMG sports seats by turns, but the interior opulence, build quality and classy aesthetic were all present on the opulent ‘standard’ S-class we tested this summer.

Sparking up the V8 doesn’t initially send shivers down your spine, either. The S 63 gets an adaptive AMG exhaust which keeps its valves firmly shut on start up, and for much of the time when the car is in Comfort mode. Thus it crawls and queues with a buzzy, eight-cylinder hum, which blends seamlessly with the S-class’s refined and respectful ambience.

Thoughtlessly prodding it doesn’t immediately appeal, either. In the smaller, lighter Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the engine is a bladdering riot of a redline botherer, but here, anchored by greater heft and accessed via a long and sympathetically tuned accelerator pedal, it can be properly stroked along, turning millimeters of ankle movement into a slow, sonorous building of crank speed.

The result is carefully metered, self-indulgent and cocooned rapidness. Especially coming as it does with the unseen helping hand of the Magic Body Control, which uses cameras to scan the road ahead for notable bumps up to 80mph, and then hydraulically adjusts the suspension to smooth imminent impacts away.