The Real Deal

With A Powerful, Handbuilt Twin-Turbo V8 Engine That Pumps Out 630Bhp And 900Nm Of Torque, And A Zero To 100Kph Sprint Of Only 3.2 Seconds, This Is The Fourdoor Coup To Beat.

- Gautam Sharma

This is a classic David-versus-Goliath battle. Except, in this case it seems David — represented by a compact, low-riding Mercedes-AMG GT R — has the on-paper advantage over the gargantuan AMG GT 63 S 4-Door Coupe, the Goliath in this tussle.

We’re at the Circuit of the Americas, in Austin, Texas — where the Formula One circus will descend next weekend — and Bernd Schneider is flinging his silver GT R around the track as though it’s a qualifying session for the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), Germany’s premier saloon car racing category… in which he just happens to be a five-time champion.

Herr Schneider is the pacemaker for our track session in the brand-new AMG GT 63 S 4-Door Coupe, and his ultra-rapid progress is incentivising me to throw the two-tonne, five-metre long behemoth into corners with entry speeds that shouldn’t be possible in a vehicle of its size and weight. Yet, the big Merc is soaking it all up and doing an uncannily adept job of staying within proximity of the hard-pedalling touring-car ace in the waist-high GT R.

You may be looking at the accompanying images and wondering what exactly the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe is and how it fits into a model line-up that already includes the E-Class sedan and coupe-wannabe CLS – and you’d be well justified in doing so. At face value, the Merc’s latest offering seems to be the answer to a question nobody asked.