MERCEDES-AMG C63 I BMW M3 I AUDI RS4
Hot estate warfare recommences as AMG’s radically revised C63 meets the first ever BMW M3 Touring and the Competition version of Audi’s RS4 Avant
Just a few hours into our four-day test, the frowning and chin-rubbing is in full effect. No, it’s not just you. Yes, I found that too. Maybe we should go for another loop through those hills, just to make sure…
The reason for our collective perplexity? The estate version of the all-new Mercedes-AMG C63, the one that’s ditched the V8 in favour of a hybridised 2.0-litre four. Some months ahead of the Merc’s arrival in the UK, we’ve put it up against its two natural foes. The BMW is the first ever M3 Touring. The Audi is the limited-edition Performance version of the RS4 Avant.
And it soon becomes apparent that there are some pretty serious questions to be answered. Not just the obvious – which is best? – but also some puzzlers around what exactly these cars are for, how versatile they really are, and how they fit into a world that seems to be abandoning estate bodies and high-performance petrol engines.
When Mercedes revealed the details of the new C63 last year, there was a lot of concern about the technical specification. Chiefly, the sheer amount of it; it’s an exceptionally complex powertrain. And there was also the not unrelated question of its weight – well over 2000kg. Had Mercedes-AMG made a strategic mistake in trying to throw so much technology at a mid-sized estate?
First impressions are reassuring: when catapulting off the line fully charged, the C63 is a formidable weapon, launch control or not. Equally impressive is the massive in-gear thrust, the bullet-like throttle action in Race mode, the seamless go-go-go urge, the brutally explosive power even beyond 125mph, and the long, strong legs on an empty German highway.
In isolation, this big-number performance is pretty impressive. But how much of the time do you want to be driving like the world is a drag strip? And how well does the Merc fulfil all the other functions required of a performance estate – functions performed admirably well by its rivals, and by the old C63.
BMW invented the high-performance estate car in 1992 with the 335bhp M5 Touring, which was closely followed by the 268bhp 1993 Mercedes-AMG E36 Estate and the 1994 311bhp Audi RS2 Avant, a joint effort with Porsche. Thirty years down the road, having seen off various rivals, the three German premium brands are again battling it out, even though the estate car – by now an almost exclusively European phenomenon – has over time come under strong pressure from crossovers and SUVs offered by a much wider variety of manufacturers. In addition, these beefed-up, tailgate-equipped family cars are facing increasingly stiff op
