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After the Frankfurt Motor Show, we were bumming around downtown when we got pulled into an alley, blindfolded, and bundled into a premium-feeling SUV that smelled distinctly like a Mercedes. We were driven to what ended up being the riverside suburb of Mainz, where we were hauled from the SUV and had our sight restored. In the hard light, we saw a row of perhaps a dozen C-class-sized AMG models. The pumped fenders, twin-bulge engine lid, surgical-quality eighteen-inch wheels, and race-inspired breathing gills gave away the place of manufacture before we saw the AMG badge.

As it is told to us by Mercedes-Benz and AMG speakers, the C63 AMG—or “W204” in company documents—is the first of the latest wave of “63”-badged AMGs to have been treated somewhat as a development project unto itself, and not simply as a pumped-up production car with attractive bolt-on after-goodies. Two points aim to certify this claim: planning of this burning four-door began when development started for the new C-class, so the C63 had an independent yet parallel computer-generated gestation period, and then practically the entire front end of the car (chassis and body) is unique to this AMG model.

This latter point is the truly significant one as we sit in the driver’s seat, moving forward at various speeds and on various types of road. Prior to the arrival of this C63, all AMG cars, while certainly having attitude and able to go fast, still felt soft-ish in their performance through demanding curves. While they can all blow the doors off most comers on the interstate or in long sweepers that hide no surprises, as soon as radii decrease and the steering rack begins sawing left and right, they have betrayed their origins and cannot keep up with their competitors. This isn’t by mistake; the majority of premium and performance-car buyers worldwide show a slight preference for cars like Mercedes-Benz and AMG for exactly these ride traits. But the AMG offerings are now so numerous that it’s time to find occasion to take on BMW more directly. We’re not saying that the new front end on the C63 automatically makes the car dynamically better than the BMW M3, but it gets it quite dramatically close to that, so that in the final calculations the C63 is now the all-around better car.

It’s inevitable that we think about the latest 415-horsepower M3 as we test the 451-horsepower C63 (and we’ll get the two together once the four-door M3 becomes available next year). Where the M3 carries a tight and light 4.0-liter high-revving V-8 and is only available for now with the six-speed manual, this C63 hoists the 6.2-liter V-8 (6208 cubic centimeters and therefore nowhere near 6.3 liters) mated to the smooth 7G-tronic manu-matic in its AMG Speedshift Plus iteration. This gearbox offers comfort, sport, and manual modes, controlled either by left-right sequential shifts at the console lever, or by up and down paddles at the steering wheel. The M3 does what it does best by keeping revs high and the torque line long and flat (all 295 pound-feet are mostly there between 3500 and 7000 rpm), while the C63, with all eight big barrels blasting, resorts to M3-belittling gobs of American muscle-car torque (peaking at 5000 rpm with 443 pound-feet) throughout its more modest rev range. At 3814 pounds, the beefcake C63 sedan does outweigh the M3 coupe by 165 pounds, but the sheer power and torque traits—as well as the huge improvement in front axle responsiveness—make the C-class AMG an M3 party-crasher at last. At the moment, also, the C63 exhaust note on throttle flat drowns out any sound coming from the M3. We can’t wait to have them face off, especially once the new BMW M Dual-Clutch Transmission seven-speed manu-matic is ready.

Versus the C350 civilian range-topper, the wheelbase for the C63 is only an iota longer, while the front wheel track is just over 1.4 inches wider and the rear track almost half an inch narrower. You can spot this switch with the naked eye pretty easily since the all-new front end design results in a spectacular look while the rear end comes off as rather modest. Besides this wideness factor, the AMG car’s length stretches out by 5.7 inches, with 3.4 inches of that happening at the front to accommodate the longer engine and added aerodynamics at the car’s edges.

Dynamically, the C350 and C63 could hardly be more distinct from one another. As a significant part of the C63 front end redo, there is an entirely new engine cradle that holds the V-8 down lower and farther back, helping in turn to create a lower roll center for the whole through those previously telling curves. Between this and the beefier steering knuckles behind the eighteen-inch wheels—not to mention the tighter steering ratio and denser ball bearings throughout the assembly—steering response is glaringly more immediate in any moment it is needed. We have experienced such rigid satisfaction in a Mercedes product (actually decidedly more of it) only twice before in the not-for-North America CLK DTM AMG coupe three years ago and then recently in the yummy CLK63 AMG Black Series coupe. And, boy, does the C63 ever cost less than these two, as reportedly it will begin around $63,000 when it starts deliveries in North America in April 2008.

More good news is in the offing, too. Previous snippets had the Euro-optional nineteen-inch wheels not being offered in North America with the available P30 performance package, but these were all lies. The P30 option will have the nineteen-inch wheels, limited-slip differential, larger brakes, Alcantara steering wheel skin, and no speed limiter, thereby allowing an estimated 180-mile-per-hour max.

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Magazine Issue: Winding Road Issue 27