2017 Mercedes AMG C63 S Coupe front three quarter in motion 022

A top-notch chassis helps deliver hero status. The structure is rock solid and yet feels much more nimble than its two-ton curb weight suggests. The steering is thankfully linear, not variable, nicely weighted, and returns some feedback from the road surface. The adjustable dampers are among the best in the industry. They're appropriately stiff but always handle disturbances smoothly and in a controlled manner, allowing you to do things like bounce the car off the apex curbing in an off-camber corner with the full confidence it will four-wheel drift nicely through the exit and hook right up when you go to power.

Between the corners, the Coupe is pretty damn impressive, too. The thrust from that spectacular twin-turbo V-8 is immediate and endless, never seeming to suffer from turbo lag. Subjectively, the car feels considerably stronger than its 503-hp rating suggests, a testament to AMG's tuning of the car and the driver experience. The optional sport exhaust thunders with the characteristic AMG bellow we love, though I hoped it would be louder in Race mode (AMG says it's noise law-compliant in every mode).

2017 Mercedes AMG C63 S Coupe center console gear knob

On the other end, the optional carbon-ceramic front and steel rear brakes are incredibly powerful in their own right and seemingly impossible to over-tax. On the track, I found myself consistently braking too early at the ends of the long straights and subsequently chastising myself for not braking later. It doesn't seem like you ought to be able to brake a nearly 4,000-pound vehicle so late, but these binders will do it, repeatedly.

In between, the seven-speed multi-plate launch-clutch automatic continues to impress with its near-as-makes-no-difference telepathic programming. The shift paddles are there if you'd like to do it yourself, but at no point did I ever feel a need to. It's always in the right gear at the right time, and it gets to them instantly. At least, at wide-open throttle, anyway. At anything less, I found a disappointing tendency towards a slower, stiffer upshift rather than the silky smooth, near-instantaneous upshift it's capable of.

All the rest of the time, when you're driving the car like a normal human being, it's a very nice place to motor. The interior is no different than the sedan's from the front. In the rear, there's a good amount of space for a coupe and getting in and out is no better or worse than for any other two-door with a back seat. Sightlines out of the vehicle are generally good, though the rear window is quite small and the trunk quite tall, so you'll absolutely be using the standard rearview camera when backing up. In Comfort mode, the ride is a nice as you could ask for from a high-performance sedan and it "sails" (disengages the transmission from the engine to eliminate engine braking) whenever possible to reduce fuel consumption. Mercedes-AMG doesn't have official figures for the U.S. market yet, but promises a 20 percent improvement from the last-generation Coupe. Figure something in the ballpark of the sedan's 18 mpg city/25 mpg highway/20 mpg combined.

As quick and efficient as the C 63 S Coupe may be, the one thing it won't be doing quickly is getting here. The on-sale date is slated for some time in the summer, a few months after the standard Coupe goes on sale. Like the fuel economy, an official price hasn't been released yet, but we're told to expect a starting point somewhere in the mid-$70,000 range, probably slightly more than the sedan's $72,825 point of entry.

2017 Mercedes-AMG C63 Coupe
BASE PRICE	$75,000 (est)
VEHICLE LAYOUT	Front-engine, RWD, 5-pass, 2-door coupe
ENGINE	4.0L/469-503-hp/479-516-lb-ft twin-turbo DOHC 32-valve V-8
TRANSMISSION	7-speed automatic
CURB WEIGHT	3,950 lb (mfr)
WHEELBASE	111.8 in
LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT	187.0 x 73.9 x 55.1 in
0-60 MPH	3.9-4.0 sec (mfr est)
EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON	Not yet rated
ON SALE IN U.S.	Summer 2016

2017 Mercedes AMG C63 S Coupe rear end in motion 03