There many US automotive journalists who keep saying that they’d love it if there were more super-fast wagons/estates on sale Stateside, as they are a very cool breed of car which not only satisfies the need for performance, but also that for practicality and interior space fit to carry an entire family.
However, it seems that it’s more of an enthusiast’s choice here, and while there would be demand, it would not be sufficient to justify import and other associated costs.
Nevertheless, these uber-estates can be found in Europe, and one of particular interest is the 2014 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG 507Edition, which is also available as a saloon or coupe, and gets 50 extra horsepower over the basic AMG variant. It recently passed through the hands of Motor Trend’s Jonny Lieberman, who was bowled over by how good he says it is, in the praise-laden video we attached below.
Since there are none (officially) in the US, the MT crew had to travel to Germany, where they experienced the car on a series of winding roads, through the Black Forest mountains. Thankfully, they also took it onto an unrestricted stretch of autobahn, where it was pushed to 291 km/h (181 mph), before an Audi A3 diesel cut Lieberman off and ended his speed run.
Wrapping up the review, the problem of big naturally-aspirated engines is brought up, since the C63 still uses the relatively old 6.2-liter V8, a unit which is being phased out by the more efficient 5.5-liter twin-turbo used in many of the newer 63-badged AMGs. And yet, while some other manufacturers have messed up the familiar V8 rumble by using a twin-turbo setup (BMW M5 is the most important car that comes to mind here), AMG’s smaller force-fed unit sounds just as good as the larger motor, so we won’t miss it too much when it does eventually go away for good.
By Andrei Nedelea
VIDEO