Prior to driving the new S63, it was instructive to spend a week holidaying in Eastern Europe. There, refreshingly, the SUV has not laid waste to the luxury segment: many if not most people still see a large upmarket saloon as the apex of the aspirational car-buying pyramid. Against this backdrop, the Mercedes S-Class continues to command serious, head-turning cache and a week spent in the back seat of a heavily optioned S 580 was a reminder not just of the model’s relative strengths as a supremely wonderful mover of overweight middle-aged people, but also of a time when the firm's flagship was a big deal in the UK.
Of course, you can’t even buy the V8-powered S 580 in this country (which is a shame; it’s a monster). If you want your S-Class with eight cylinders, the new S63 is, at the time of writing, the only option. That likely reflects the trifling size of the audience more than a British preoccupation with getting all the bells and whistles - but they do come with the range-topper regardless. In fact, when it was unveiled, Mercedes-AMG proclaimed the latest version ‘the most powerful S-Class of all time’. Yes, because it gets the familiar twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 in avalanche-grade 612hp (and 664lb ft of torque) format, but also thanks to the additional 190hp (and 236lb ft) supplied by the rear-mounted electric motor under the E Performance trademark.
That accounts for the headline 802hp figure and the eye-opening claim of a 3.3-second 0-62mph time. Not quite as crushing as the 843hp GT 63 E Performance then, which originally introduced Mercedes-AMG’s top-spec petrol-electric powertrain to the buying public, but with a bigger battery at 13.1kWh and an improved 21-mile all-electric range. If that doesn’t sound like much, it isn’t (although the combined economy score has now improved to 61.4mpg); the S63, as part of its maker’s grunt-bias when it comes to all things E Performance, is about giving you a thin strata of electrification insofar as it helpfully embellishes the way a very large and heavy V8-powered car gets up the road.
In the GT 63, this seemed slightly counter to its chin-jutting image, which needs an unfettered eight-cylinder soundtrack to underwrite its glowering physical presence. But hybridisation suits the S63 predictably well - especially as (in stark contrast to the four-door coupe) Mercedes has made relative subtlety a key component of its design direction. AMG’s idea of an S-Class looks nicely hunkered on its 21-inch, matte-black forged alloys, but the breathed-on aura is still all business - like Vitali Klitschko in a three-piece suit. Possibly Mercedes UK took this unfussy approach a bit too literally on the inside - the combination of black leather and black piano lacquer, punctuated only by the firm’s seemingly ubiquitous 12.8-inch portrait screen, proving supremely forgettable in light of a £200k asking price. But you will not want for space or a pervading sense of expensively wrought comfort.
This quality flows upwards from the air-sprung chassis. While previous iterations of the AMG-tuned S-Class have always been strikingly rapid (let’s not forget the two-model lineup once incorporated the 6.0-litre bi-turbo V12) they have not always been exceptionally comfortable. The E Performance version isn’t either - not least because the S 580 is superior - but the residual stiffness that used to be a dead giveaway is impressively well smothered with the adaptive dampers in Comfort. This is good not just for the high-end, occupant-pleasing usability you’d expect from a 5.3-metre-long luxury car, but because it helps to highlight just how good the S63 is when you find a sufficiently well-sighted B road to justify selecting Sport.
That the car is enormously and irresistibly fast with its powertrain in ‘try harder’ mode is hardly a revelation. It is plenty quick enough in Comfort. Much as it did in the GT 63, the electrified V8 and the (temporary, condition-dependent) 1,054lb ft of torque available to the 4Matic all-wheel-drive system make short work of two-and-a-half tonnes. And while the interaction between electric motor and petrol engine isn’t always guaranteed to be bowling green-smooth, you do get the kind of relentless delivery that seems virtually inexhaustible without having a derestricted autobahn as your vanishing point. No - the real takeaway is the extent to which the S63 makes all this power seem less like a big stick to wallop the slower-moving hoi polloi with, and more like something to be relished for its own sake.
Some of the credit for this (as ever in the UK) must go to the compromise struck in the chassis tuning, as the car’s capacity for riding out substantial, course-deflecting bumps mid-corner is impressive for such a heavy car. But it’s the canny, sleight-of-hand presence of active roll stabilisation and rear-axle steering that gets the latest S63 turned in like a C-Class. And not in a way that makes it seem blithe or bizarrely disconnected to the laws of physics, but with the kind of ingratiating corner-to-corner flow that you want from a big saloon that is so strikingly good at carrying speed. That its capacity for doing so on PH’s regular test route occasionally brought to mind the Porsche Taycan (another tech-laden heavyweight indebted to its mass-defying gizmos) speaks volumes about just how laudable it is.
Obviously, there are stark limits to that comparison - the S63 isn’t nearly as communicative or as quick to turn as the lower-slung and smaller EV - and yet some of the Taycan’s aptitude for absorbing punishment in precisely the same moment it is cooly deploying power is what ultimately makes the 802hp S-Class better to drive than most oversized saloons. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily make the E Performance a better limousine in a more holistic sense: its battery runs low in what seems like nanosecond if you take advantage of the car’s Electric drive mode - and even if you don’t, the presence of so much associated kit over the rear axle reduces the boot volume to 305 litres. Which doesn’t seem like enough if you’ve got other people and all their clutter to move around. Which presumably you do.
But if you don’t, and you’re keen to channel your inner, east-of-Berlin entrepreneur with Euros to burn, then the S63 does make an intriguing choice. It is a more nuanced and better-riding prospect than the GT 63, yet it forgoes none of its technical sophistication, nor much of its insatiable appetite for far horizons. It is slightly more economical, too, and conveys affluence (and influence) without the lead pipe styling. It better suits those moments where EV silence is appropriate, while still providing the perfect setting for some end-of-days V8 shove. If I’d not spent the previous week in an S 580, I’d probably think it the best S-Class you can buy. Of those available in the UK, it almost certainly is. But, given the choice, I’d still have the slower, cheaper, softer, 503hp V8 Mercedes only sells in more enlightened markets. Go figure.
2024 Mercedes-AMG S63 E Performance Night Edition | Specification
Engine: 3,982cc, V8, turbocharged
Transmission: nine-speed DCT, four-wheel drive
Power (hp): 802 (612 @ 5,500-6,500rpm)
Torque (lb ft): 1,054 (663 @ 2,500-4,500rpm)
0-62mph: 3.3 seconds
Top speed: 180mph
Weight: 2,595kg (EU)
MPG: 61.4 (WLTP)
CO2: 104g/km (WLTP)
Price: from £188,820 (as tested, £200,815)
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