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The AMG GT 4dr will make your kids cry from laughter and terror

Under the skin of the new Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-door, there’s a lot going on as the transition from the AMG GT sports car to GT family car proves to be anything but straightforward repurposing. But if you’ve gone off the whole oxymoronic genre of fast SUVs, this menacing mutation from AMG is far more versatile than its niche status would have you believe.

If the AMG GT is the self-proclaimed answer to Porsche’s 911, then the GT 4-door deals with the Panamera head-on. In the past, that would have been the job of the CLS 63 AMG but perhaps Mercedes thought there wasn’t enough sports car DNA in that package. The GT 63 S 4-door, on the other hand, spent more of its upbringing around the track – it even has all the pre-loaded track telemetry you’d need to share with absolutely nobody. 

Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4MATIC+ 4-Türer Coupé, AMG Night-Paket, Exterieur: Motorraum, Außenfarbe: designo diamantweiß bright;Kraftstoffverbrauch kombiniert: 9,1 l/100 km; CO2-Emissionen kombiniert: 209 g/km (vorläufige Daten) Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4MATIC+ 4-Door Coupé, AMG Night-packet, Exterior: engine compartement, Exterior paint: designo diamond white bright;Fuel consumption combined: 9.1 l/100 km; CO2 emissions combined: 209g/km (provisional data)

As for styling, this segment is a bit of an open goal; the upcoming BMW M8 Gran Coupe is probably the best of a mediocre bunch. Styling of these sporty GTs is an eternal compromise and the GT 63 struggles to juggle brutality with beauty. Still, it possesses more on-road presence versus a Panamera, the same status quo as an AMG GT over a 911. Rear space with individual rear seating is spacious albeit not bristling with S-Class type lux and the boot extends far into the wheelbase. So long as you don’t pack too high, you’ll be fine. 

Underneath the packaging, the GT 63 S 4-door is an amalgamation of C-Class, CLS, and E-Class architecture that has in the simplest terms been stiffened and strengthened to cope with track days. As a result, ride quality is perhaps its biggest weakness, reacting to surface changes with all the clumsiness of a last-generation A-Class. Loose items jiggle about. This annoys me in a sportscar, let alone a Gran Tourer where the expectation of refinement is several notches higher. By comparison, the E 63 S rides much better while being 9/10nths as raucous. You’d need something akin to the smoothness of a billiards table to even contemplate putting the adaptive dampers in Sport. In fact, there are so many systems and menus in the GT 63 but over half of them are too extreme for the normal type of driving you’re likely to be doing. The setting I used most often was for the interior light effects while the other nine thousand chassis systems felt like overkill and can detract from the car’s prodigious grip or silky shifts – Drift Mode being top of that list. 

Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4MATIC+ 4-Türer Coupé, AMG Night-Paket, Exterieur: Außenfarbe: designo diamantweiß bright, Farbvariante schwarz;Kraftstoffverbrauch kombiniert: 9,1 l/100 km; CO2-Emissionen kombiniert: 209 g/km* (vorläufige Daten) Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4MATIC+ 4-Door Coupé, AMG Night-packet, Exterior: Exterior paint: designo diamond white bright, colour variation black;Fuel consumption combined: 9.1 l/100 km; CO2 emissions combined: 209g/km* (provisional data)

Yet you can’t argue with the quality of the two screens upfront with their glossy animations and graphics. Hooray for physical buttons either side of the gearshift, each with their own image. That couldn’t have been a cheap exercise but it adds so much speed and directness to the more fiddly touchpads on the steering wheel.

It’s a pity that the GT’s ride is so knife-edged – pronounced by hard seats – because at speed it completely transforms into a potent weapon that feels half its size. You can sense the rear-bias and rear-wheel steering takes a virtual chunk out of the car’s 5-meter length. 

The body remains ridiculously flat and the driving position is superb. Ours came with beefy carbon-ceramic brakes that surprisingly felt perfectly tuned for the road. It’s in these incredibly brief, albeit ecstatic, moments that make you accept its position alongside cars like the E 63.

The powerplant is a continuation of the 4.0-liter V8 twin-turbo and 9-speed gearbox. It sits on dynamic engine mounts so as not to affect the car’s balance. With such large amounts of power and torque, this is Merc’s most powerful iteration of the renowned Hot-Vee clocking 0-60mph (100km/h) in 3.2 seconds. The soundtrack is still awesome, enriched by vocal turbochargers venting pressure back into the atmosphere. For us, it just has the right amount of raw, old-school colossal punch married with ultra-modern, lag-free tech.  

Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4MATIC+ 4-Türer Coupé, AMG Night-Paket, Exterieur: Außenfarbe: designo diamantweiß bright, Farbvariante schwarz;Kraftstoffverbrauch kombiniert: 9,1 l/100 km; CO2-Emissionen kombiniert: 209 g/km* (vorläufige Daten) Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4MATIC+ 4-Door Coupé, AMG Night-packet, Exterior: Exterior paint: designo diamond white bright, colour variation black;Fuel consumption combined: 9.1 l/100 km; CO2 emissions combined: 209g/km* (provisional data)

The AMG GT 63 S 4-door is considerably more expensive than an E 63 S which notwithstanding the E’s bigger boot also has a chassis comfort that we feel is better suited to most driving and can be dialed up enough if the road gets twisty. When you’re talking about family cars that do 0-60mph in the low 3s, I’m not sure there are too many people out there who care all that much about another tenth or two. The styling still looks compromised, like it would be better off as a shooting brake and those racetrack credentials don’t make it a better car to live with. But if you want a fast 4-door GT with lots of eye-popping tech, this is probably the pick of the genre. JP