Most powerful AMG in Istinye Park | The Mercedes-AMG GT63s!

The 630-HP 2019 Mercedes-AMG GT63 S Is Ferocious and Fine

Mercedes-AMG's newest four-door takes after its two-door GT sibling, delivering scorching performance and speed with its twin-turbo V-8 and racy chassis.

BY RICH CEPPOSUPDATED: SEP 2, 2019

We're happy to report that not a single Car and Driver editor is currently behind bars. This despite our having had a Mercedes-AMG GT63 S in the office fleet for two weeks. It could easily have gone the other way. You see, the AMG GT63 S is the great white shark of luxury cars. Once it has you in its grip, you're done. It's impossible to resist its immense power. It's shaped like a blunt torpedo. Its toothy grille looks like an ominous gaping maw, poised to devour everything in its path. And it's no illusion.

HIGHS: Warp-speed acceleration, Olympian moves, lavish interior.
Consider the evidence. The GT63 S's twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 heart pounds out 630 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque. All that throbbing energy is routed through a nine-speed automatic and the AMG-tuned 4Matic all-wheel-drive system, which enables this Mercedes to bolt to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds. The quarter-mile is an 11.1-second 125-mph blur. AMG claims a top speed of 195 mph; it says as much on the tire-inflation sticker on the inside of the gas-filler flap that instructs you to increase the tire pressures for driving at speeds above 156 mph. In our testing, the GT63 S reached 175 mph from rest in the space of one mile. Rolling on optional Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires, it corners at a heady 1.03 g's on our skidpad, matching the roadholding of our long-term Porsche 718 Boxster S.

Those performance numbers put this four-door hatchback in league with the world's quickest supersedans: the BMW M5 Competition, the Porsche Panamera Turbo, and AMG's own E63 S sedan—though the M5 and E63 S begin to edge ahead at the quarter-mile mark. But the GT63 S tears those competitors to shreds when you put them all on a fast open racetrack. It is by far the quickest four-door we've ever hustled around Virginia International Raceway during our annual Lightning Lap competition. You can read about that triumph in the upcoming November issue.

LOWS: Fussy infotainment system; Lord, why can't it be 100 grand cheaper?
The GT63 S's test results amount to supercar bona fides, but those numbers are easy to misinterpret. AMG would have you believe that the GT 4-Door—the lineup also includes the 577-hp twin-turbo V-8 GT63 and the 429-hp, turbocharged, supercharged, and electrified inline-six GT53—is a stretched version of the company's GT two-seater. It's not. GT 4-Doors are built on a different, heavier platform belonging to the E63 S wagon. Our loaded, 4682-pound test car was carrying 1001 pounds more than the hottest of the GT coupes we've tested, the 577-hp track-attack GT R.

Vehicular DNA aside, this AMG's brilliance comes not so much from its sheer speed as from its tremendous bandwidth. The GT63 S takes the two-seat GT's eye-watering performance and stretches it into another dimension entirely: luxury.

VERDICT: The big fish eat the little ones. This is a big fish.

That luxury emanates from both the way the car drives and how it's equipped. The interior is modern and gorgeous, bordering on decadent—especially so in the case of our test vehicle, which was slathered in $5710 worth of optional black nappa leather, microsuede, and carbon fiber. The $500 red seatbelts and the perfectly sewn contrast stitching matched the body color. Optional highly adjustable sport seats provided additional support for hard cornering.

The front of the cabin is dominated by Mercedes's digital instrument cluster/info­tainment screen, which is actually two 12.3-inch displays under one piece of glass. The graphics are tasteful and crisply rendered. The functions for almost all of the car's systems are accessed through the screen via its three touchpad controls—a large one on the center console and two tiny ones on the steering-wheel spokes that you swipe with your thumbs. We'd prefer a control knob or a touchscreen to the center-console pad, which was fussy to use.

An additional 15 grand went to optional mechanical upgrades: carbon-ceramic brakes, forged 21-inch alloy wheels (20-inchers are standard), those Cup 2 tires, and an aerodynamics package. The aero kit is composed of a revised front splitter, a fixed rear wing in place of the retractable unit, and several other tweaks to improve downforce and stability at high speeds. Our test car was also fitted with a package of a dozen or so driver-assist features, from adaptive cruise control to evasive-steering assist.

Read more: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a28789838/2019-mercedes-amg-gt63-s-by-the-numbers/