BRING THE THUNDER

The GT 63 S Coupe is the latest fire-breathing four-door car from Mercedes-AMG. Possibly, the wildest one yet

- AATISH MISHRA & HENRY CATCHPOLE

WHAT’S IN A NAME? FAMOUS lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, followed profoundly by — and I’m paraphrasing here— a rose would smell just as sweet by any other name. That may be true, but a name is everything. Names form associations, and associations trigger emotions. Hear or read a specific name and your brain’s synapses fire to trigger memories, thoughts, smells, sights and sounds. These letters or syllables, depending on whether you are reading or hearing them, form complex spectres in your head that rise from your perception of the world. A rose may still smell like a rose, regardless of what it is called. But it would also still have its thorns.

The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-Door Coupe. That’s one long, mighty, convoluted name — one that I tripped over more than a couple of times while attempting to do a video showcase of it at the Auto Expo. Mercedes wants you to think of it as a four-door version of the AMG GT sports car, but it actually shares more with the E 63 AMG than the 2-door GT. It not only gets the same MRA platform as the E 63 but also the wet-sump engine. There’s no transaxle. Mercedes have even ditched the naming scheme from the GT — S, C, R and R Pro for the more sedan-inspired ‘63 S’. Wait, so is this just a fancy E 63 S with an even fancier price?

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