Mercedes Benz - Thunder Cracker

The first four-door to come from Mercedes’ performance arm AMG has a complicated name and an even more complicated relationship with the CLS.

If you haven't already noticed by now, Mercedes-Benz is a master of sub-segmenting product lines in bewilderingly granular ways. Remember, this is a company whose entry-level A-Class has two separate saloon bodystyles, the more conventional A-Class Saloon and the sportier CLA Coupe.

But one has racier styling and the other is an upright saloon, you might be saying. And in all fairness, you do have a point, they are aimed at different people. However, near the top of the sprawling Mercedes-Benz product tree, it has a pair of models that are for all intents and purposes identical. Both fulfil their respective roles as a flagship fourdoor, though one carries a price premium of some S$100,000 and the prestige of having an AMGexclusive bodystyle – only the third to come out of Affalterbach and the first to have four doors and seats.

So, what then, is the Mercedes-AMG GT53 4-Door Coupe and more importantly, does it justify the greatly inflated expense over its effective doppelganger, the CLS53?

It does, at least, offer a different experience from just about any way you might look at it. To begin with, you feel a lot more snug in the GT53 4-Door Coupe, with its high shoulder line and tall centre tunnel.