Can we learn to love the idea of a four-cylinder hybrid C63 wagon...
While it’s true that ‘less is more’ can seem a bit reductive when dealing with tightly regulated and highly proprietorial performance cars, it is also true that the flagship AMG-badged C-Class was based on a simple formula. It had a V8. And just any old V8 - the model went from 4.3-litre to 5.4-litre to 6.2-litre to twin-turbo 4.0-litre in less than 20 years. The salient point of this arms race was not hard to grasp: the C63, as it would eventually be called, was like The Guns of the Navarone.
The result, collectively speaking, is cleverer than a crammed conference room at AWE Aldermaston. It looks the part, too. The C63, like the rest of the Mercedes C-Class, has never been sleek or particularly seductive. The best AMG efforts have always been three-part function, one-part aerodynamic knuckle duster, and that’s what you get here. The wagon, driven here in the UK for the first time, is more pleasing to look at the BMW M3 Touring, more foreboding than the Audi RS4 Avant.
There are other things it cannot do. The unexpected leniency of the dampers in Comfort mode - one of eight drive settings - is fine on a motorway, but more often than not the body control goes south on B roads, and its tendency to bob under duress doesn’t prevent the wagon from being jostled by sharper edges. Sport mode doesn’t solve the problem either, or not to the degree you’d hope anyway.
The chassis takes all this in its stride much more effectively than it does a bumpy road. The E Performance’s kerbweight is never not a factor because it feels like a big lump - certainly it slows down like one - although with the battery and 30-odd litres of cell coolant located out back it is suitably well balanced and isn’t hard to get turned in with the rear wheels doing their thing.
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