Lap Time: 2:59.2
Base Price: $80,775
As-Tested Price: $91,080
503 hp | 3949 lb | 7.9 lb/hp
For the past few years, Mercedes has sent along a man, Karl-Heinz Seitter, to mind its cars at Lightning Lap. He’s also become a kind of Mercedes-Benz team manager, gently prodding our drivers to do better. Tell him you got a 3:02 and he’ll ask you if three-flat is possible. Get the three-flat and he’ll have you chasing 2:59. We love Karl-Heinz; it’s like having the great, globular Rennleiter Alfred Neubauer along, but without the gray serge and fedora.
We thought the C63 S had hit the temporal wall at just over three minutes, but Herr Seitter went to work, channeling the ghost of the big man. He had to move fast; the car spent a day fallow with a chewed accessory belt that was destroyed by a bad alternator. He thought this middle-sized AMG, with its roaring 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, could slip under three minutes, and we were obliged to try.
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The issue is getting the car to turn and then putting down its prodigious power. After bombing the straight with a Vmax of almost 148 mph, the pipes blaring thrilling war whoops that echo off the pit suites, the C63 then demands saintly patience through the slow corners while its tires wrestle with nearly two angry tons of inertia.
On the fastest lap, they held against 0.98 g of lateral in Horse Shoe; the CTS-V tied for grip and only six cars posted higher numbers. At the exit, throttle discipline keeps the rear end in line as the 516 pound-feet of torque seeks an outlet. Once the summer sun had warmed the track like a flatiron, the C63 was done, its brakes just fine but its tires no longer able to deliver.
Supportive buckets hold you in place, and the blappity-blap of the downshifts makes inspiring theater. Sweptback and smoothed over, this newly urbane C63 lacks some of the race-day brashness of the old C63, especially the slightly quicker Black Series coupe tested in 2013. Still, at 2:59.2, the new C63 S becomes the fastest four-door AMG we’ve tested. Seitter was smiling, but he’ll be back with more next year.
K.C. Colwell, the executive editor at Car and Driver, is a seasoned professional with a deep-rooted passion for new cars and technology. His journey into the world of automotive journalism began at an early age when his grandmother gifted him a subscription to Car and Driver for his 10th birthday. This gift sparked a lifelong love for the industry, and he read every issue between then and his first day of employment. He started his Car and Driver career as a technical assistant in the fall of 2004. In 2007, he was promoted to assistant technical editor. In addition to testing, evaluating, and writing about cars, technology, and tires, K.C. also set the production-car lap record at Virginia International Raceway for C/D's annual Lightning Lap track test and was just the sixth person to drive the Hendrick Motorsport Garage 56 Camaro. In 2017, he took over as testing director until 2022, when was promoted to executive editor and has led the brand to be one of the top automotive magazines in the country. When he’s not thinking about cars, he likes playing hockey in the winter and golf in the summer and doing his best to pass his good car sense and love of '90s German sedans to his daughter. He might be the only Car and Driver editor to own a Bobcat: the skidsteer, not the feline. Though, if you have a bobcat guy, reach out. K.C. resides in Chelsea, Michigan, with his family.
Eric Tingwall holds degrees in mechanical engineering and journalism, a combination he pursued with the dream of working at Car and Driver. While living his dream, he has cut car parts in half, driven into a stationary dummy car at 50 mph, lapped Virginia International Raceway in the hottest performance cars, and explained the physics behind the wacky, waving, inflatable, flailing-arm tube man.
Tony Quiroga is a 20-year-veteran Car and Driver editor, writer, and car reviewer and the 19th editor-in-chief for the magazine since its founding in 1955. He has subscribed to Car and Driver since age six. "Growing up, I read every issue of Car and Driver cover to cover, sometimes three or more times. It's the place I wanted to work since I could read," Quiroga says. He moved from Automobile Magazine to an associate editor position at Car and Driver in 2004. Over the years, he has held nearly every editorial position in print and digital, edited several special issues, and also helped produce C/D's early YouTube efforts. He is also the longest-tenured test driver for Lightning Lap, having lapped Virginia International Raceway's Grand Course more than 2000 times over 12 years.
