Mercedes-AMG discounting its F1-inspired super saloon by £9500

Mercedes-AMG didn’t help itself with the current C63 S E Performance. The new car market is tumultuous enough as it is at the moment on both sides of the forecourt, with high costs to develop, manufacture, and distribute resulting in unusually high prices, made even higher by interest rates the already cash-strapped car buying public aren’t used to. 

Add to that, in the case of Mercedes-AMG’s technological tour de force, an audience totally alienated by the downsized direction a car previously celebrated for its multi-cylindered bluster and bravado has been taken in. The result is low sales, which means quite significant discounts.

Take a jaunt over to Mercedes’ UK website and you’ll find a page with rows and rows of Mercedes-AMG C-Classes with £9500 lopped off the price. That’s ten real, newly-built cars that are available to view, test drive and buy, with what is almost a ten percent discount.

Most of them are Night Edition Premium Plus spec, meaning they’re down from £99,595 to £90,095. All cars also include two free services, worth £840, as well as the usual three-year warranty. Monthly prices start from £979 on a 48-month PCP, based on 10,000 miles a year and a £15,766.63 deposit.

The discount brings a new C63 well below the on-the-road price of the latest BMW M3 Competition saloon, which will set you back £107,620 at minimum, once it’s on the dealer lot and the keys are in your hand. That’s right, the old-fashioned fully petrol-powered BMW is a hearty £17k more than the high-tech F1-inspired performance hybrid from Affalterbach. Is that enough of a difference to erase the extra appeal the BMW has over the Mercedes? We’re not so sure. 

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‘The four-cylinder engine’s sound isn’t particularly sonorous, which is a shame, but missing a rumbly V8 isn’t the reason for the lukewarm star rating based on our initial limited driving opportunities,’ Henry Catchpole, evo contributor, wrote of the new C63 in his first drive review.

‘It is the sheer weight, and the sheer level of complication that contributes to the new car being less fun than its predecessors. The older 63s were much more raw cars (and the new car’s long-distance refinement is in another league), but they were also more exciting and involving in the way they drove as well as for their hot-rod powertrains.’

By the numbers the C63 is technically very impressive. Its 2-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine produces 469bhp on its own. You’d need a Koenigsegg, an Aston Martin Valkyrie or the F1-engined Mercedes-AMG One hypercar to best its 234bhp per litre specific output. Its relatively diminutive 6.1kWh battery can charge and discharge rapidly in Race mode too, to make sure that the 201bhp potency of the electric motor is available as much as possible. 

But compared to the rivals mentioned above it feels (and is) heavy and that engine, while undeniably a feat of engineering, doesn’t strike any emotional chords, let alone in the same way as the old V8s.

If the expense of the M3 has you stopping short of signing on the dotted line and the Merc leaves you cold, even with its discount, you could always check out the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, which is cheaper than both (even with enormous recent price hikes) starting from £87,000.