Every three years or so, Mercedes-AMG dusts off the Black Series badge, sticks it to the rump of some grossly overpowered road-racer and the world becomes a better place. Or if not better then certainly louder. There have been six Black Series AMGs in all, the first arriving in 2006. With every new model, the ambient atmospheric volume rises a notch higher.
Two of those six have been based on the humble C-Class – these two. The first was the CLK63 Black Series in 2007, the second the C63 Black Series four years later. Others in the model line have been lunatics of the stark raving kind: trashing hotel rooms, biting the heads off bats – regular madman stuff. But these two? I can’t quite work out if they wear their Ozzy Osbourne garb as authentically as the SL65 Black Series of 2008, for instance, or if they’re more like sixth form students queuing at a bus stop in Rocky Horror fancy dress. Do they even deserve their Black Series badges?
These are the things you ponder as you wait for the rain to stop. Down it comes, harder and harder. The weather app on my phone insists the clouds will part and the sun will shine imminently, but the view from where I’m sitting says otherwise. I suppose you shouldn’t bring a pair of Black Series AMGs, both painted black, to the Black Mountain in South Wales and be surprised to find the skies have dressed for the occasion too.
On the way these two cars look there is consensus among the entire Ti squad except me. I’m all alone, steadfast in my belief that the CLK is the better-looking car. For me, the gloss paint, silver wheels and less fussy styling allow the car’s musclebound stance to take centre stage. But nobody seems to agree. Everybody else prefers the C63’s matte paint, its black rims, that spindly wing out back and all the vents and aero flicks everywhere else. As they say, there really is no accounting for car journalists.
These may well be the least mad of the Black Series AMGs, but perhaps that’ll turn out to be a good thing. Normally is, isn’t it? World leaders, parliamentary candidates, nightclub bouncers, ex-girlfriends… Maybe we can add limited-run Mercedes sports cars to that list. If this weather clears up, we might just find out.
I've spent plenty of time in this very CLK63 Black Series before, but it was raining then too. There is a great deal still to be learned. This was only the second AMG to wear the Black Series badge, after the mostly underwhelming SLK55 Black Series. It arrived 17 years ago with manually adjustable KW suspension, tracks widened by 75mm at the front and 66mm at the rear, a limited-slip differential, fixed-back bucket seats, carbon fibre wheel arches, uprated brakes and tyres and no rear seats.
I drop into the bucket on the driver’s side and am reminded right away what a difference a chair like this can make. You’re properly located within the car, meaning you can use the steering wheel only for its intended purpose – it needn’t be a grab handle too. There is so much about this car that promises the world, but when I spot the weedy little gear selector down by my left thigh and the stumpy gearshift paddles attached to the steering wheel, I’m reminded of the slurry auto they’re connected to.
So it is with visibility. Peer over your shoulder and you’re offered a widescreen view of the world, uninterrupted by B-pillars. At a standstill that seems a wonderful thing, but once on the move you realise the cost that unobstructed vision comes at: torsional rigidity. The slushy transmission and pillarless body are ever so well suited to a breezy cruise along a coastal road, less so to thundering around racetracks. Or mountain roads. It may well be that the easy-going CLK was never going to receive its Black Series treatment terribly well.
The rain is lighter now and the clouds are beginning to shift. You can pick holes in this car’s cabin quality, particularly the flimsy ventilation switchgear, but more concerning are the steering wheel that’s far from round and its relationship to the pedals. They’re misaligned like a wonky spine. But you forget about that stuff once you’ve fired the M156 6.2-litre V8 into life, more so when you start digging into the travel of the throttle pedal.
There’s no question that this is one of the great modern performance car engines, but right now, on this sodden road, it’s causing problems. I haven’t dared touch the ESP button high on the dash (jab it once and the systems are off-off, to paraphrase Micky Flanagan) and still the rear wheels are spinning. It’s a wild ride. With every cautious mile the road surface dries a little and the skies brighten, so by the time I’ve turned around at the far end and made my way back to base, I finally have some grip and traction to lean on.
And that causes problems of another kind. This car is clearly set up for road use – it feels not only pliant but soft. Ride comfort is completely at odds with the exterior appearance, which seems to promise a bone-crunching ride and iron-clad body control. Out here, where the road leaps up and down over the terrain, it means the CLK contains its own mass like a sieve contains water. It bucks and writhes all over the place. Stand hard on the power and the car squirms and corkscrews. When you tip it into a quick turn with some commitment, you feel the weight of the body lurch hard to the outside. Combine that with woolly steering that offers no real sense of connection to the front axle and you’re left guessing at best, at worst fearing this thing might get away from you.
All the while the body flexes and shudders, causing the interior trim to creak and groan. Gearshifts are slow and ponderous too. You seem to wait seconds for the gearbox to find a lower ratio and if you don’t call for the upshift well before you need it, you’ll crash the V8 into its limiter. You have to drive this car at its own pace. You must make allowances for its shortcomings. Hustle it too hard and it feels like it might fall to pieces like a clown car.
So why oh why do I enjoy driving this thing so much? In part, it’s because I like working in a car, being busy, using my own judgement, not simply deploying every drop of bravery I have and finding the car I’m driving has barely noticed – an all too common occurrence in the latest performance machines. Mostly, though, it’s that 507hp engine. Of course it is. All that displacement gives it the elemental force of a turbo engine through the mid-range, but it spins out with frantic energy and sounds like thunder beyond the hills. You can forgive a car a great deal when it sounds and goes like this.
But maybe we needn’t forgive anything. The CLK’s replacement arrived in 2011 with fractionally more power from the same engine and much the same Black Series makeover – wider tracks front and rear, similar bucket seats with the rear chairs thrown out, KW adjustable suspension, an LSD and uprated brakes and tyres. But its cabin feels two generations newer and the seat, pedals and steering wheel are perfectly aligned, like the seating position was signed off by a chiropractor.
The spec sheet doesn’t promise a great deal over and above the older car, but you only need to travel a few hundred yards to realise how much more competent is the C63. It actually feels quicker simply because it puts its enormous power down to the road so much more effectively, meaning less is wasted in furious wheelspin and tortured tyres. There isn’t quite the same squidgy feel to the suspension over bumps, but the damping is excellent meaning ride comfort is still good. Body control, though, is night and day better than the CLK’s. This is a flatter car in corners, it doesn’t throw its weight around so madly when you turn into a bend or the road kicks and heaves around, and there’s no corkscrewing motion when you extend the motor.
Meanwhile, there is real precision in the steering and far sharper responses. And the body, complete with B-pillars, is more rigid by a laughable degree. The V8 is every bit as joyful here as it is in the CLK, but it’s mated to a transmission that actually does it justice. Finally you get downshifts when you ask for them, while upshifts bang home hard and fast. It’s not a dual-clutch transmission but an automatic with a clutch pack instead of a torque converter. Mercedes calls it the MCT transmission, for Multi-Clutch Technology, and while it’s not as incisive as a DCT, it is leaps and bounds better than the dim-witted auto that so hobbles the CLK63 Black Series.
This, then, is a car you can get on top of. Really exercise along a road. You trust the steering and feel the grip, and squeeze the throttle pedal hard, knowing the forces you’ll unleash will be met with an equal force at the tyre contact patches. The chassis and transmission are a match for that brilliant V8, which means you get to enjoy every ounce of its magnificence much more often. The C63 is a cohesive whole, not just a great engine stuffed into a package that isn’t up to the task.
AMG’s engineers clearly did better work with the newer car, but equally, I suspect, they had a far better basis upon which to work. The standard C63 Coupé was a fundamentally more sporting car than the stock CLK63, and that difference is never more apparent than in these Black Series variants.
So do they deserve their badges? It really is tempting to think of the Black Series AMGs as the most unhinged of an already quite loony lot, but I don’t think that was ever the point over in Affalterbach. I remember asking former CEO Tobias Moers exactly that – he told me these models should be the sharpest, most rewarding drivers’ cars in the Mercedes stable; the three-pointed star’s retort to all those fabulous GT-badged Porsche 911s. He didn’t see them as savage animals at all, but as precision instruments. And by that measure, only one of these two machines really stacks up.
Even so, I can’t ignore the fact that the emotional connection I feel to the C63 Black Series is no stronger. It is better in every objective way and, for that reason, it is the one I would choose to own. But any time I saw a CLK63 Black Series on the road – whenever I clocked that cleaner shape and more provocative stance – I would wonder if I had allowed myself to be steered by my head, not my heart.
SPECIFICATION | CLK63 AMG BLACK SERIES
Engine: 6,208cc V8
Transmission: 7-speed auto, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 507@6,800rpm
Torque (lb ft): 465@5,250rpm
0-62mph: 4.3 sec
Top speed: 186mph (limited)
Weight: 1,760kg (EC)
On sale: 2007-2008
Price new: £97,000
SPECIFICATION | C63 AMG BLACK SERIES
Engine: 6,208cc, V8
Transmission: 7-speed AMG MCT automatic, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 517@6,800rpm
Torque (lb ft): 457@5,200rpm
0-62mph: 4.2secs
Top speed: 186mph
Weight: 1,710kg
On sale: 2012 - 2013
Price new: £138,000
This comparison test originally featured on The Intercooler. Ti is the original ad-free online car magazine and is active across a wide range of platforms: subscribers get unlimited access to our content, including new episodes of our hugely popular podcast and we produce interview-based podcasts exclusively for subscribers. You can also follow us on social media and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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