Mercedes-Benz AMG C63 Estate Review & Prices

The true car nuts will spot the Mercedes-AMG C63 S e Estate for what it is, as the slatted ‘Panamericana’ grille, the 20-inch alloys, and the quad exhausts are enough of a giveaway. To the average passer-by on the street, though, it just looks like a regular well-heeled suburbanite C-Class estate. While the old C63 would have given the game away with a deep-chested V8 exhaust rumble, this one might just swish by on totally silent electric power, which further ramps up its race-car-in-disguise potential. 

That’s because this generation of C63 S e — not without controversy — has switched to four-cylinder turbo power, backed up by a plug-in hybrid system whose electric motor provides the extra power to overmatch any V8 that wanders into its sights. The four-cylinder motor provides a frankly nutty 475hp while the 204bhp  electric motor tops that up to a wild 680hp in the C63e S Performance version. That’s enough to give the C63e Estate a 0-62mph sprint time of just 3.4secs, and that in spite of a kerb weight topping two-tonnes. 

In a way, then, the Mercedes-AMG C63 S e Estate is like Greta Thunberg once she’s hit the gym and eaten a bucket of creatine powder — the hybrid bit is there to be environmentally caring and sharing, but there’s muscle and power that you might not expect from looking at the exterior. 

It is a plug-in hybrid, so in theory you can top up the compact battery for some electric-only miles, but even the official claimed electric range is pretty titchy, at just eight miles. Really, the electrical system in the C63e — developed with input from Mercedes’ Formula One team, so you can boast that Lewis Hamilton tweaked your Merc — is there to provide extra performance, rather than assuage your climate change guilt. It does at least help to keep the official CO2 figures down to 156g/km and the claimed fuel consumption is 40.9mpg (good luck getting better than 20mpg in real life, though). That does mean that you’ll pay a relatively reasonable (by AMG standards) £180 in VED road tax, but of course you’ll have to pay the extra £390 expensive-car-levy on top of that. In BIK terms, a C63 S e Estate will set you back as much as £600 per month. 

It must be worth it for the driving experience though, right? Well, actually possibly not. The AMG C63 S e Estate hits hard in a straight line but it, obviously, lacks the musical engine sounds of the previous V8-engined version. It does corner with serious verve and precision, and you can feel the power swapping between all four wheels as you go, but the weight can play havoc with the C63’s balance, and its brakes aren’t as good as you’d want them to be. The adjustable suspension is soft enough for comfort in Comfort mode, and suitably taut in Sport, Sport +, and Race forms, and we love the little rotary switches on the steering wheel that allow you to flick instantly between driving modes.

The cabin is basically the same as that of the regular C-Class, but with AMG-spec bucket seats, sports steering wheel, leather, and carbon fibre trim. The big touchscreen in the centre of the dash is one of the better ones to use, with relatively simple menus and a straightforward logic to it. 

This Estate version is definitely a better choice than the saloon, though, simply because of the boot. The hybrid batteries and four-wheel drive system trim the C63’s boot to a laughably small 315-litres. The Estate doesn’t look much better on paper — just 360-litres up to the luggage cover — but of course the benefit is that in an estate, unlike a saloon, you can load above the luggage cover. Fold down the back seats, and you’ll have a 671bhp two-seat AMG with 1,375-litres of boot space. Not a bad compromise, that. 

We'll do a full in-depth review on the Mercedes-AMG C63 S e Estate once we've extensively tested the car, but while you're waiting you can have a look out our latest Mercedes deals and used Mercedes cars for sale. You can sell your current car through carwow, too.

All that hybrid technology doesn’t come cheap, and the C63 S e Estate is a full £10,000 more expensive than the BMW M3 Touring. True, the Mercedes has more power, and can run on zero emissions for short bursts, but the BMW’s simpler layout and hardly-sluggish performance will appeal to many. You could argue that the Mercedes is the better looking car of the two, but to be honest most of the customers for these sorts of high-performance machines will be quite tribal — they’re either for BMW or Mercedes, and never the twain shall meet. 

Unless of course there’s a third option, and there is — the Audi RS4 Avant, which is still on sale in spite of being quite an aged design. Old it might be, and equally well down on power compared to both the BMW and the Mercedes (the Audi has 450hp to the BMW’s 510hp and the Merc’s 680hp) but it’s vastly cheaper than either, undercutting the BMW M3 Touring by a full £15,000, making it a whopping £25,000 less than the C63 S e Estate. It’s not as quick as the other two, but still very fast, lots of fun, and very practical too. 

To help offset its higher price tag, the C63 S e Estate is well-equipped, with those large 20-inch alloys, a full AMG body kit, keyless entry and ignition, four-wheel drive, heated multi-contour AMG bucket seats, Nappa leather, and high-gloss carbon-fibre trim as well as AMG’s impressive electronic driver aids package, which not only helps to keep you safe on the road, but helps you go faster on a race track.