AMG’s new C63 S E Performance is a very different car than the one it replaces. The old one was rear-wheel drive with a twin-turbo V8 and the new one is all-wheel drive and powered by hybrid-assisted four-cylinder engine. That new setup makes the new C63 a slightly different proposition to the BMW M3 Competition this time around, and also, AMG revealed today, a more expensive one.
Prices for the C63 in Germany have been released and while we’re still waiting for the corresponding figures in North America and the UK, they give us a good steer as to how much more we’ll have to pay to take a C63 home instead of an M3 when it goes on sale in our markets.
The sedan version of the C63 costs an irritatingly non-round €114,887.96 in its home country and the wagon version comes in at €116,672.96. Translate that price into dollars and you come up with a pretty scary $122,000 for the sedan, though we imagine the real U.S. price will be much lower. The 402 hp (408 PS) C43, for instance, costs $84,000 in Germany, which is the equivalent of of $89,600, but the true dollar price is only $59,000.
The €115k sedan and €117k C63 wagon prices look steep compared with €100,300 for a German-spec BMW M3 Competition xDrive sedan (which costs just $83k in the U.S.) and €102,610 for the M3 Touring that is only available in Competition xDrive guise. But then the Mercedes does have a humongous horsepower advantage to help persuade you that it’s worth the extra money. The BMW’s 3.0-liter six makes 503 hp (510 PS) and 479 lb-ft (650 Nm), decent figures by any normal yardstick, but rendered fairly anemic by the 671 hp (680 PS), 752 lb-ft (1,020 Nm) C63.
AMG also announced prices for some C63 options, including two carbon-fiber appearance packages (€2,083 and €3,510), two sports seat options (€2,559 and €5,522) and the AMG Real Performance Sound generator (€655) that is supposed to make up for the absence of a V8. Buyers thinking about ticking a ton of those kind of boxes might want to consider the “F1 Edition” package, which bundles various options together, and clothes the sedan (or wagon) in Manufaktur alpine grey solid paint set off by some questionable graphics and red detailing. The F1 kit is only available during the C63’s first year on sale and costs €17,612.