Top Car

26 TOPCAR.CO.ZA|January 2016FIRST DRIVES.Keep the accelerator pinned for morethan afew seconds and you’ll be travelling at ‘justlock me up officer’ speed. Zero to 100kph is a3.9-second, speech-slurring, vision-blurringreality. There are faster carsaround, but notso many at this price. With 700Nm ofalways-on torque at the ready, stamping onthe gas ge ts the rear end thrashing ab outlike a GreatWhite shark in a feeding frenzy.Sorry, but painted in matte grey, the analogyseems apt. Want more? Engage Race modefor maximum crazy as the ESP switchesautomatically to sport handling mode. It’llstill tame the most injudicious combinationof steering and throttle inputs but not before``````you’ve left skid marks or left skid marks, ifyou catch my drift. Around the tricky26-corner Ascari circuit near Ronda inSpain, the C63 S proved that in the righthands it’ll just about ke ep up with a properlydriven AMG GT S. You do feel the mass, butthe nose is less affecte d by it than you’dthink, turning in with alacrity and handlingthe track’s two chicanes like a formerOlympic slalom skier after a few gluhweins- tidy, if not outright competition ready. Theonly time the V8’s weight comes into play isunder hard braking when the rear end ge tslight and twitchy. The C63 S is a mad, addictiveamphetamine. But dial it back to Comfortand you may as well have poppeda Xanaxand gone driving in your mum’s C200. Yes, itcan cruise along a coastal ro ad, cross acontinent or drop the kids off at sc hool inconvincing serenity, its weapons of warhidden beneath a thick comforter.Merc-AMG may have gone a little bonkerslately, but the C63 S can still do the old-schoolMercedes-Benz thing. What it cannot doislook as tame as one. This time aroundAMG’s style-mongers battled hard for moredifferentiation, and won. So the C63 Coupelooks much morepurposeful even than thesportiest C-Class sedan, especially at the rearwhere flared wheel arches and wider tyresstar alongside a bootlid spoiler extension,striking ta il-lights and a moreboldly sculptedquad exhaust and diffuser arrangement. Getone in stealth paint, both carbon fibre exteriorpackages and black 19s for max shock factorat the golf club. Or better still, grab a(limited) Edition 1 model in designo magnoselenite grey mattepaint, 19- and 20-inchmixed-si ze black alloysedged in an eye-searingyellow (yes, yellow) huewith matching yellowcalipers and stripes thatrace along the bonnet,over the ro of and ontothe bootlid. Seriously,you’d need to gofullLiberty Walk to make itlook any wilder.tc``````HIGHSStunninglooks,searing speed,prodigiousgrip``````LOWSWaiting until Marchtodrive it again``````VERDICTFrom docile toexplosive and 48stagesin between