I’m not fancy. I’m simply grateful that I receives a commission to write down about and drive automobiles all day, and truthfully it doesn’t take a lot to make me blissful. I personal a 2017 Mini Cooper S, and when folks ask me what my dream automotive is I don’t actually have a solution as a result of my Mini does the whole lot I want. I purchase new garments perhaps every year, I stay in a studio residence, and my favourite meals is a tie between mozzarella sticks and pupusas. Having stated that, when the fabulous of us at Mercedes provided to mortgage me a practically quarter-million-dollar 2024 Mercedes-AMG GT63 S E Efficiency 4-Door Coupe to drive out to the Las Vegas Grand Prix, I leaped on the alternative.
Full Disclosure: Mercedes loaned me a AMG GT63 S E Efficiency 4-Door Coupe to drive out to Vegas, put me up in a flowery lodge, fed me plenty of scrumptious meals, and facilitated a really once-in-a-lifetime expertise on the Las Vegas Grand Prix for me. And I received to scare the crap out of my mother over Thanksgiving with launch management, which was an additional little deal with.
Proper off the bat, it was fairly darn cool to know that the automotive I used to be driving was really quicker than the nonhybrid GT63 that’s used because the System 1 security automotive. Regardless of having doubtlessly the longest and most convoluted identify of any automotive on sale in the present day, the plug-in-hybrid Mercedes-AMG GT63 S E Efficiency 4-Door Coupe is an alarmingly fast car when the celebs align correctly. Twist the steering wheel–mounted drive mode dial over to Race mode, faucet the middle console–mounted traction management button to set it to Sport Traction, stomp on the brake pedal, ground the accelerator and say a fast prayer, as a result of the Race Begin launch management is violent. Launch the brake, and let loose a guttural scream that your ancestors may hear because the GT63 intestine punches you into the massaging seat and also you rocket away from a cease — virtually any stoplight challenger dumb sufficient to suppose they’re quicker.
Okay, in order that occurs like half the time. The opposite half of the time once you’re making an attempt to scare the crap out of your mother or your pals, you do all that and the gauge cluster says, “Race Begin not potential,” and you then appear like an fool. With out Race Begin energetic, the GT63 remains to be very speedy, simply nowhere close to as violent. You see, the GT63 S E Efficiency has the identical twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 engine because the common GT63, however features a rear-mounted electrical motor with 201 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque and a 6.1-kWh battery pack. As with different efficiency hybrid techniques, this extremely complicated powertrain needs to be within the correct mode on the correct time to shine its brightest, and even then typically it simply doesn’t do what you need it to do.
Race Begin unlocks the automotive’s full potential, unleashing all 831 horsepower and 1032 pound-feet of torque for a claimed 0-to-60-mph time of a blistering and really plausible 2.8 seconds. What different giant German efficiency sedan not too long ago received hybridized? Oh yeah, the BMW M5. It was additionally universally criticized for being porky, however the GT63 S E Efficiency is hardly any completely different, weighing in at over 5,320 kilos, just below 70 kilos lower than the M5. That stated, the AMG is 0.6 seconds faster to 60 than the BMW, but it surely nonetheless feels hefty when the street will get twisty.
Apart from the herculean energy, the GT63 S E Efficiency is a complicated automotive to me. My press automotive value $225,570 (together with a $1,150 vacation spot cost), which is greater than the beginning worth of a Bentley Flying Spur, a automotive that carries much more panache. The AMG GT 4-Door has been round since 2019, and its inside does look dated in comparison with the three-pointed star’s latest choices, although I personally recognize the array of bodily buttons for local weather and drive modes. When my non-car-people pals received into the AMG GT, they requested if it was a couple of years previous for the reason that inside didn’t look nearly as good because the CLE press automotive I had some time again. So, relying in your persuasion, this generation-old inside can both be a superb factor or a nasty factor. The entrance seat cup holders objectively suck, although. Smaller cups don’t match as a result of the cupholder cubby is simply too deep and it pops the highest off of a grande espresso cup, and if you happen to put one thing larger in there it completely and infuriatingly eliminates the usability of the local weather management buttons.
The platform’s age additionally exhibits a bit when utilizing the GT63 for day by day driving duties. The journey isn’t essentially unhealthy, but it surely doesn’t really feel refined. Traversing the damaged concrete roads round Hollywood leads to structural jiggles and a few unusual noises that sound like an overinflated basketball being hucked at a brick wall, a pointy form of ping noise that’s disconcerting. I additionally skilled some shocking phantom behaviors from the $1,950 Driver Help bundle. When at low speeds, the system engages a site visitors jam help mode that’s supposed to assist out, but it surely intermittently detected non-existent automobiles in entrance of me when the lead automotive would transfer ahead. I’ve years of expertise with this explicit system and it has by no means behaved this fashion prior to now for me, so I’m guessing it was a sensor calibration concern, however annoying nonetheless.
Apart from these points, being within the hybrid GT 4-Door is a reasonably particular expertise. The $1,100 Acoustic Consolation bundle consists of elevated cabin insulation and acoustic glass for the windshield and aspect home windows, which makes it a reasonably good place to take a seat whereas the world goes on round you. The inside appears and feels top quality, and although I’ve by no means seen a red-rimmed steering wheel earlier than, it’s definitely distinctive to say the least. My check automotive had the $3,350 Govt Rear Seat bundle, which drops seating capability to 4 and features a “fastened heart enterprise console” with heated and cooled cup holders. In case you’re placing an govt at the back of a GT 4-Door, they’d higher be small as a result of that sloping roofline restricts head room and the rear quarters are a bit cramped as a complete. An enormous rear hatch opens to disclose a compromised but nonetheless usable trunk that has a big elevated rectangle the place the E Efficiency {hardware} lives.
Like within the AMG C63 S E Efficiency, that E Efficiency {hardware} isn’t designed to win inexperienced automotive of the 12 months. The 6.1 kWh battery solely has 4.8 kWh of usable capability, which from my expertise allowed for an EV-only vary of about 4 miles. The regenerative braking system solely features intermittently, and each single time you alter drive modes it’s a must to re-set your regen ranges if you happen to favor something above minimal regen. A professional of such a small battery is that the brakes can really seize sufficient power so as to add vital cost to the battery, however typically the automotive wouldn’t enable regen to activate, and I couldn’t discover any logical purpose why.
The brakes and transmission would sometimes staff as much as create scary and unpredictable stopping behaviors in low-speed site visitors, too. Generally I might attempt to come to a easy cease at a site visitors gentle, the transmission would all of a sudden jerk and I must apply far more brake stress than regular to forestall a crash. The hybrid system is generally clear in regular use, but it surely has unpredictable moments the place it feels poorly built-in and undoubtedly not suited to a automotive costing practically a quarter-million {dollars}. It additionally solely equates to tiny gas financial savings, with EPA scores of 25 MPGe with the hybrid system practical and 18 mpg in strictly ICE operation. In my expertise, I noticed round 20 mpg in blended driving circumstances. For reference, the non-hybrid GT63 S is EPA rated at 15 mpg metropolis and 21 mpg freeway.
So, then, is it a superb automotive? Apart from the pace not objectively, however subjectively it’s silly highly effective, silly extreme, and truly turns lots of heads regardless of my press automotive being a boring shade of flat grey. If you need the final word snug standing image that’s nonetheless fast, spend the identical cash on the Bentley Flying Spur. If you need an obscenely highly effective and distinctive automotive that may sometimes be used to seat 4 and has at the very least a bit of electrical vary, you need to give the GT63 S E Efficiency a glance. It’s faster than the common GT63 S 4-Door, however who actually must drive a sedan faster than the usual AMG GT63 S? No person that’s who, however that’s additionally why it’s cool, and why you would possibly really need it.
