Mercedes-Benz CL 63 AMG Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Mercedes-Benz CL 63 AMG
Prices: £110,000 - on the road [est]
Insurance Group: 20
Emissions: 244g/km
Performance: 0-60mph 4.5s / Max Speed 155mph
Fuel Consumption: (combined) 26.9mpg
Safety: traction and ESP stability control. ABC suspension, PRE-SFAE, twin front and side airbags
Dimensions: length/width/height 5095/1871/1419mm

A CLEANER SCREAMER

Our Rating: 7.4 / 10

Big coupes don’t get much more accomplished than the astonishing Mercedes CL 63 AMG. Steve Walker reports

You can be reasonably sure that the pressing need to improve the environmental performance of our cars has permeated every strata of the automotive industry when people at AMG start acting on it. In the past, the high performance tuning arm of Mercedes-Benz has been about as environmentally-friendly as a sinking supertanker but the talk surrounding the launch of the CL 63 AMG super coupe was all of engine downsizing, high efficiency direct fuel injection and stop-start technology.

At this point, traditional AMG customers might be thinking about taking that long walk in the woods with a revolver but wait. Despite its greener focus, the CL 63 still has 544bhp, 800Nm of torque and would prefer a blue steak to a lentil sandwich.

The CL has long been a rather unique proposition on the motoring stage and in its range-topping AMG guise, it looks all the more unorthodox. It amounts to a two-door coupe version of the S-Class luxury saloon but beneath bodywork that clearly betrays those conservative origins lurks an engine capable of blowing supercars into the weeds.

The CL’s strange mix of high performance insanity and luxurious, chairman-of-the-board comfort isn’t easy to come by elsewhere but modest sales levels for the CL hint at a possible reason why Mercedes has been riding solo on this bandwagon. In any case, whatever you think of the car, it’s hard to turn you nose up at the engineering and technology behind it.

This CL 63 AMG is a very significant car for AMG. It marks a change in direction that was made to deliver on the company’s promise that future improvements in performance would go hand in hand with similar steps forward in efficiency. That’s why the old and much loved 6.3-litre V8 has gone, only to be replaced by a 5.5-litre V8 engine that debuts the combination of spray-guided direct injection, twin-turbocharging and stop-start in an AMG product. Like other AMG engines, this one is assembled by hand and signed by the technician.

The engine is teetering on the cutting edge with its aluminium crankcase, variable valve timing and high pressure turbocharging but it still has the old AMG thunder in its belly. The peak power and torque of 544bhp and 800Nm can be increased with the AMG Performance Pack to 571bhp and 900Nm of torque. Even in standard form, this vast coupe can pass 62mph in 4.5s and slam headlong into its 155mph speed limiter a short while later. With the Performance Pack, the sprint is fractionally quicker but a limiter is still required to rein the AMG in at 186mph.

You couldn’t call the CL 63 AMG a raw performance car, its driver is assisted by a plethora of electronic systems designed to make the act of going fiendishly fast as effortless as possible. The gearbox is AMG’s advanced Speedshift MCT 7-speed system and the ABC Active Body Control adjusts the dampers to the driving conditions while also combining with the stability control systems to stabilise the car in crosswinds. Vast AMG high performance brakes do the all-important stopping duties.

Today’s CL might be less visually exuberant than cars with similar performance but it’s a far more elegant proposition than the bland CL models of the past. That holds true with the AMG models which add some extra visual impact with an AMG body styling kit along with a revised bonnet, radiator grille and bicolour tail lights. Big triple-spoke light alloy wheels complete the look.

At 5,095mm from stem to