The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4MATIC+: A Track-Focused Grand Tourer?

As I stepped into the cockpit of the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4MATIC+, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation. This was a car that promised to deliver high-performance thrills, yet also hinted at being a comfortable grand tourer. But how did it fare on the track?

The GT 63 S comes equipped with Sport Plus mode, which allows for more roll and absorbency through mid-corner bumps. This is particularly useful on circuits like Silverstone, where the bumps can be quite pronounced. I found that with Sport Plus engaged, the car was able to hug the corners beautifully, providing a sense of confidence and stability. However, if I eased off the brakes slightly as I approached a turn-in, it would subtly push into oversteer – a characteristic I've come to associate with rear-wheel drive cars.

One of the standout features of the GT 63 S is its transmission. The nine-speed automatic is now shorter-ratio than on previous models, which should make for quicker acceleration and better mid-range responsiveness. But what's truly interesting is how this affects the car's behavior in different modes. When I ran up to high speed under acceleration, it felt a bit like being in a high-performance sedan – there was a sense of weight transfer and torque steer that made me feel like I was sliding around on the track.

The drive mode controller allows for a great deal of flexibility, with options ranging from gentle roll to aggressive rear-biased traction control. The '8' setting, which is slightly off by design, gave me a strange but welcome feeling – it's almost as if the car was 'playing' with its own traction limits. However, I did find that even in this mode, the car would occasionally lose grip and start to understeer, especially on slower corners.

On the track, I found the GT 63 S to be a lovely handling car. It's got a lot of character and some surprising agility for a car of its size. But what really sets it apart is how easy it is to drive smoothly through mid-corner sections – without ever feeling like you're sacrificing performance. The 'Track Mode' on the stability button gives you a bit more flexibility, with eight-stage traction control that lets the car dance around corners in just the right way.

Of course, this is not a track-only car. It's a grand tourer at heart, designed to be comfortable and easy to drive on the road. And that it most certainly is – especially when you're cruising down A-roads or enjoying a leisurely drive through the countryside. The GT 63 S has an oddly 'relaxed' feel to it, which belies its potent performance.

In fact, I think this is one of the key strengths of the GT 63 S: it's a car that's happy to be driven moderately. You don't need to go absolutely mad sideways through mid-corner sections if you don't want to – just ease off the throttle and let the car straighten itself out. And when you do start to push, the car responds beautifully. It's almost as if it's been engineered with a specific 'sweet spot' in mind.

One thing that's worth noting is that the GT 63 S comes with an eight-stage traction control system – which is actually pretty cleverly implemented. When I turned the drive mode controller all the way up, the car felt incredibly aggressive and eager to rotate around corners. But when I dialed it back down to five or one (or even 'off' in track mode), it became a much more compliant handler.

The GT 63 S is also a beautifully engineered package. The interior is lavish and comfortable, with all sorts of nice touches like Alcantara trim and a clever 'one-touch' gear selector. And the exterior design – well, let's just say that it's certainly a head-turner.

So what's the verdict? Is the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S a track-focused grand tourer? Not exactly. But is it a wonderful handling car with a lot of character and a comfortable ride to boot? Absolutely. And if you're looking for a high-performance sedan that can also serve as a comfortable weekend cruiser, then this could be just the ticket.

In terms of performance, the GT 63 S is certainly up there with the best of them – 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 producing over 630 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque. And while it may not be the most exotic package on offer (there are more limited-edition GTs to come), this is still a car that should give you plenty of thrills for your money.

The starting price of £165,000 (road-going, no less) might seem steep to some, but I think it's worth every penny. After all, as the chief engineer told me during our test drive, 'This is not just a track-focused car – it's a grand tourer at heart.' And if that's what you're looking for, then the GT 63 S should be on your shortlist.

The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4MATIC+ is set to go on sale soon.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome to autocar and a drive of the new all singing all dancing Aston Martin Vantage which may not look so different from the old one from the outside but I can tell you that the restyle more musly uh a bit wider than it was a bit more pled than it was actually hides vast number of changes Under the Skin let's start with the big one which is the huge number increase of power on the engine hang on it's a Mercedes AMG 4 L V8 as usual however so changed is it it even as the block has a new part number there are new internals there are new turbocharges power is up from just over 500 horsepower before to 656 now so it's had something like 150 brake horsepower change like 30% up torque is up quite a lot it's now 510 foot pounds I think 800 newton meters but the reason I'm showing it to you as well is that come in Jack have a look at this the chassis is a development of the one that went before but is hugely increased in strength in terms of what they call local or nodal stiffness so while the sort of overall Global stiffness as in when you twist a chassis like that the number may not be vastly increased they don't quite want the stuff that happens locally so these longitudinal beams are tied together better at the front this new strap race is much stiffer and lighter than the one that went before and the idea is the more you can tie down the chassis stiffness the better the suspension is allowed to work so as we come around to the back come on open up there we go sounds good doesn't it uh there is this strut brace in the boot as well and the idea is that the Adaptive dampers they have a much broader spread of stiffness to softness than they had before to just let everything work and breathe that much better Aston talks about how their cars should ride on the road they should be able to breathe and it also be tied down when they want it to but there's some big changes inside too Jack if you come around have a have a look at the inside now if you saw our db12 Aston video recently and I recommend you do there is a lot of carryover from the db12 to this interior quality is really high I absolutely adore these little these little rotary switches it sounds like being at Lamont down this straight it's so cool Aston is also wedded still to permanent switch gear which I like physical switches it's a much nicer Happ than it was previously it's really really nicely put together this car is of course a bit shorter than a db12 and much more agile they reckon but we are going to go for a drive I'll take one for a drive on track and on the road to find out stay tuned right so let's consider the car on the road first and run through all the aspects of it one by one interior quality is really nice this stuff came into use on the DB very recently there these lovely roller switches for the temperature and the fan there's a lot of other supplementary physical switch gear which I like very much if there is a thing just this door pull there just is a little bit loose but that may be a pre-production part in general this is a really nice feeling really well finished interior lovely carbon fber wheel and color on it in this example a steering wheel that is nearly round and a very good driving position I've raised the seat up a little bit just so I can see a bit of the Bonet if you are too low you it's quite easy to sort of lose sight of the Bonnet the window line is very high there is a very sort of letter boxy wind screen and view out of the back from that point of view and I think this is a sort of Vantage thing that has happened ever since this car first made its debut it is it is a car in which you sit you sit in and it feels quite big around you I remember saying something similar on a generation or two ago Vantage you know it is a car that sort of seems to stick out wider than say a 911 modern 911 also feels quite high in its windows and it's and it's Stern but there were times when it had sort of better visibility Drive modes let's consider there are five of them wet is uh has the same sort of damper rates as the standard mode which is called sport but it has a much tighter stability control system so we won't worry about that cuz it is not wet sport is what it defaults do when you turn it on and that is kind of a all road kind of setup it has adaptive dampers it has an electronically controlled differential those talk to each other they talk to the steering they talk to your thr inputs R the inputs to try and blend it all together to try and give you the response that you want there is no active reable steer as there is in some other cars Aston has tried it said that in a car of this length it just didn't need it to work didn't feel as natural as a car without it and in fact I get it there are not that many cars with active re steer that always feel natural Porsche does it best I think when it comes to rear steering steering is electrically assisted power assisted these days it's sort of 2. say 2.3 turns Lo to L 2.2 to 2.4 something like that which is reasonably quick and the Turning Circle feels reasonably uh good at low speeds but it is not a nervous feeling rack I think a Ferrari Roma's rack is probably faster and nervier this has a more stable Center to it there are two weights of steering pick your preferred one this is the sort of lighter one and even then it's not that light you know it's kind of medium medium Plus weighted and I don't mind that at all I don't need the heavier one the dampers have three modes so this is Sport which is the standard one you can just ping that button through to Sport Plus that firms everything up a bit see this is a reasonably smooth Road it's not as bumpy as most UK roads and Sport Plus gets too much for it it's a bit there's too much vertical movement and if you go into track which we will try on track later then it's really fun ason says that actually that is kind of meant for very smooth circuits and in fact it says that the Monti Blanco circuit where I'll be in a bit actually Sport Plus or even sport are better than track the throttle map is also adjusted as you go through the drive modes the fifth of those Drive M by the way is called uh individual where you can set up what you want to set up the throttle response is good I'll extend the engine properly on circuit but meanwhile on the road I will take let's take control press manual take control of the gears myself this is about 40 mph the engine will take sort of sixth gear at that point so it's 1500 revs you don't get that much it takes about s of 1,00 revs to get going but this is a broadly t engine I will drive it around making very brisk progress that's 3,000 revs it's got a great response makes a really impressive noise it will around to 7even I'll get to that a bit later it drives the rear wheels through that ZF 8-speed fully automatic torque converter transmission Aston is it has experimented with twin clutch gearboxes some rifles do have a twin clutch gearbox there is a natural sort of torque limit that twin clutch gearboxes like to handle and the Aston makes quite a lot of torque so it's sometimes suits a revier engine in a twin box braking feel is good uh and again as says it's worked on the brakes carpon Ceramics are an option it's worked on the brake feeli that they should be basically both the same as each other and the idea would be that you don't really notice the ey quality differ between um a metal disc or a carbon ceramic disc brake feel is firm and that's deliberate they have deliberately firmed up the brake pedal feel so you get something really to press and lean against and that is replicated in a way by the way this rid steers and handles it is important I think that an Aston breathes when it comes to ride quality I don't it's not me who thinks this they think that too it shouldn't jar AS you ride along it should stay pretty flat on poor surfaces cuz this is you know although it is a sports car and aston's most sporting car at the moment it is still and that's dematic and so in sport damping mode that we're in now it does it does breathe a bit you know you get to a corner there lean body lean to lean up against and they blend the way the eif works and the brakes work and the dampers work you kind of they can soften a damper in one corner to try and help the car feel like it's turning it and then on the way out they were stiff and a damper to feel like it's giving support to the back and some of the underbody changes particularly around local stiffness and sort of noal stiffness mean that that suspension is allowed to work in the way that it wants and there isn't any take up of Slack in the chassis that the suspension and the steering you're having to cope with this the rack is now solidly mounted to uh the the steering column is now solidly mounted to the chassis whereas previously there was bushing in it they' manag to tune out any lack of refinement that that would bring because it's an electronically because it's an electrically assisted system and the result is on the road very successful it feels like it pivots sort of around its middle it all feels very naturally tuned it's a it's a very natural feeling car it's got good agility to it I've been driving along uh sort of around 3,000 RPM maybe 1,000 RPM on the side of three and it's making really terrific progress a little crackle there it's basically a really nice feeling car you know you just sort of get the front planted by trailing the brakes which is easily done because it's just really easy to bleed them off because they're so Progressive and responsive and linear and you go back on the power and away it goes down the next straight really lovely really nice I wonder if a Ferrari Roma would feel more St I suspect so because it's a slightly sort of fighti feeling higher revving sharper steering car but this Aston is really characterful really enjoyable they got to make a terrific Road car I'll be treed to see what the unlimit handling is like so we'll go and do that in a second I can drive this and enjoy this quite a lot it is a good thing and so to the advantage on circuit off of the road the gear shift indicator is quite small they tell me before production starts they will make it a little bit larger which I think is a good thing because it is slightly hard to see right this is in sport at the moment this is the control that takes it through Sport Plus into track and the dampers get each time but the chief engineer says that the individual mode which he likes has got the dampers knocked back just one from sport because this is a slightly bumpy circuit one back from track sorry so Sports Plus on the damper settings which lets you roll a little bit more lean up against the edge of the cars grip and just gives it a bit more absorbance through some of the mid corner pmps and things like that if you just run up sort of steady state to the Limit feet off everything feet off the brakes and everything you do run up to just a little bit of under steer which is not surprising there is a big engine in the front it's rear wheel drive that is the way these things are and the way they should be actually for safety however if you just ease the brakes off just slowly bleed them off as you come towards turning in and keep some no some weight on the nose in the best front wheel front engine rear drive form there is a really lovely sort of easy balance to it and then you get options on the way up okay first lap proper gear ratios are about 5% shorter than they were on the old Vantage it RS to7 where there is a soft liit pedal feel is really strong and then because I'm in the mod and stability on it won't push into overstep what you can do push the stability button if you push it once it goes into a track mode if you keep your finger on it it goes off but it gives you a uh what is that eight stage traction control and then the drive mod controller becomes the controller for that def4 to 5 which is in the middle or turn it round let's put it on five and see what it does on the way out of the corner right so that's second gear give it everything and it just lets the car move around ever so slightly you turn it all the way down to one it doesn't let it move around so much at all and now on eight there's one after eight goes to off so let's try that so that is a third gear bend that was sort of 4,000 revs accelerating from now it's at five just sort of feel the chass he start to move around a bit there is a Temptation I think if you have to come from it's really nice if you would have come from a car that had a very ey revving peaky sort of engine there are a lot of corners on this uh multier circuit you might take in second or third I think in this car even though the ratios are shorter than they were previously you'd maybe go a gear higher CU that is a sort of tightish hair pin that I've just taken in ser that would in some cars be second and this one a long right hander is actually in fourth from three and a half thousand revs it's got it is tempting sometimes to choose one lower because you think actually I'm going to get more throttle response out of it especially if you want to just that second then but I think which gives you some some option to mess around but I think in a way similar sort of speed corner I'll take it in third it takes a while for the car to warm up for the turbos to SP and then you just kind of surf the torque on the way out and let that mess around with the chassis that way and I think that's probably the way to do it andon says this is not a track car I think it's nicer to just sort of ride through the mid-range stay on a steady a throttle and let it just straighten itself rather than going absolutely mad sideways sideways and that is really nice and then it's you're sort of able to to develop a nice smooth flow throw the bre in get it planted do what you want on the throttle of the way out straighten it slightly over straighten it it's quite a relaxed car it's really good fun and there may well be an F1 Edition or a more sporty Edition later this is the base model which now costs £165,000 on the road it has the power it has the muscle certainly has the looks to compete with the stuff that is around it I like it a lot I think when it arrives in the UK which is soon customer deliveries I think started towards the end of May so not long after this video goes live uh when we get one in the UK we will test it again something else which will be on this channel and in the magazine which you can find at autocar.co.uk or over at the magazin shop.com for/ autar which has access to our entire 129e archive I recommend it to you it is a I mean it's a brilliant resource it really is so thank you for joining me I look forward to seeing you next time\n"