Ferris was referencing a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California with his line but after spending a week with this Mercedes-AMG I find it applies just as well here. And mine was red too, so there. I figured it’d be a waste to just drive it around town for this review so I corralled my youngest son and we decided to spend a day in the foothills west of Denver and tackle what is known as “The Lariat Loop”, a scenic byway with loads of potential attractions. We picked out a bunch from the list of many and mapped a route the evening before. I’ll review the vehicle in regular text but also our stops along the route in italics. Try to follow along, as we move fast!
Our first stop, or the start if you will, is the town of Golden, Colorado. We decided to start there and have a leisurely breakfast at the Golden Diner, a down-home little place popular with the locals and tourists alike serving traditional breakfast fare with generous portions, reasonable prices, and plenty of hot coffee.
Golden is of course also the home of Coors with an excellent brewery tour, a picturesque downtown area, plenty of shops, great hikes nearby, as well as an excellent train museum. More importantly for us, it’s also where my mom lives, so my son got some Grandma time at breakfast and Grandma got some AMG time in the car which was spent cautioning me about the local constabulary.
Looking at the car (while the GLC is ostensibly a CUV, I really thought of it more as a car as it exhibited no typical CUV/SUV traits while driving it), it’s obviously a pumped up version of Mercedes’ small CUV, the GLC. Slotting below the GLS and GLE, the GLC is generally about the size of a BMW X3 or Toyota RAV4 and seats up to five in two rows. In this case, the GLC63 is the top of the line, the AMG version with hand-crafted engine and numerous performance accoutrements. While a completely ferocious performance machine (0-60 in a claimed 3.8 seconds which is completely believable as well as being bettered by Car&Driver), it is also as docile as you’d like it to be around town and has the ability to change numerous settings on the way from mild to wild.
While the exhaust for example even at idle lets out a very deep bass rumble, there is a performance setting that opens a set of baffles in the exhaust, by which the note lowers even more and on overrun it crackles and pops through the four tips (two pictured above). That setting is a little much for around town but on the open road or the canyons it’s the way to go. At idle or around town the noise is subdued inside the cabin but when the right foot twitches down on the accelerator the note changes from a rumble to a ferocious snarl and small animals (and children) run off.
After breakfast we decided to already break from our pre-planned route (best laid plans and all that…) by making a slight detour to the Mother Cabrini Shrine. Located only a few miles up in the mountains west of Golden, it is on a piece of land that Saint Sister Frances Xavier Cabrini negotiated the purchase of in 1909 for use as a summer camp for her charges at the Queen of Heaven Orphanage in Denver.
Consisting of multiple buildings, a chapel, gardens, a spring, and a “Stairway Of Prayer” there is much to see and take in here. We undertook the challenge of the Stairway, burning off our breakfast by climbing 373 steps to the top of the mountain and finding upon it a 22-foot statue of Jesus mounted on an 11-foot base overlooking a Heart of Stones sculpture/feature with many picturesque way stations along the climb up.
I may have said a small (and looking back, apparently successful) prayer asking for divine intervention should an officer of the peace find my explorations of the vehicle’s capabilities in any way objectionable.
I will say that the road climbing up to the shrine’s property (and back down) is an absolute delight, consisting of a steep and narrow two-lane road with small berms, tight switchbacks, magnificent views, and basically imitating a tiny version of the Alps. Even better, the road was deserted, allowing me to fully experience the way the car put its power down exiting curves using the all-wheel drive (fully variable in this application as needed from 100% Front to 100% Rear and anything in between with what I understand to be a “normal” 31:69 Front/Rear bias), catapulting us forward and then just as rapidly slowing down for the next corner.
The transmission is a 9-speed of Mercedes-AMG’s own design; shifts are extremely rapid, downshifts can be done either sequentially or it can skip gears as needed. There are shifter paddles that work fine, but the computer seemed to do a fabulous job as far as I was concerned, downshifting as needed and up as well. In town it would be in fifth gear by 30mph and 1500rpm in normal traffic but if the need arose to get into a gap it would instantaneously downshift multiple gears and gobble up the distance.
There are five main drive settings to choose from – Slippery (for snow), Comfort, Sport, Sport Plus, and Individual – Individual is one that a user can program to make a custom “map” that chooses different characteristics from the other choices which alter the air suspension, exhaust, throttle and gearing characteristics etc. The settings can be toggled by turning an appendage on one of the steering wheel spokes (lower right in above picture) or in the center console or in the touch screen, a nice level of redundancy for an operator to choose his or her preferred input method. The same goes for individual settings, toggling through another wheel appendage button (lower left in above picture) lets one change the exhaust, or suspension damping or even the stop/start feature.
This car was equipped with Pirelli Scorpion winter tires (thankfully as it did snow while in my care) in the staggered sizes 265/40 front and 295/35 rear wrapped around the optional 21″ AMG wheels. While presumably leaving a bit of ultimate dry performance on the table, they were marvelously sticky, and while one could feel the tires scrabbling a bit at times due to large applications of power in narrow bends, with the electronically controlled limited slip rear differential it was very reassuring with plenty of feedback through the wheel.
Later that week when the weather changed drastically they clung to the snow and masked slippery conditions in slush extremely well. While when entering an icy corner there was no denying physics, even then with the stability control engaging to assist the chassis there was very little drama, more a subtle reminder that yes, it’s not dry out there. But let’s get back to the better weather…
Coming back down from the shrine, the massive brakes with six-piston front calipers in front mounted over the 14.2″ discs (12.6″ rear) slowed us over and over again before diving into corners without a hint of fade. A religious experience? Perhaps, at least the heavens were shining down on us as it was a glorious day.
The air suspension is on the stiff side which should not be a surprise but goes basically fully rigid when the toggle is pushed down twice. At that point it’s almost uncomfortable on some sections of broken road but corners flatter than a glass of soda that’s been left on the counter for a week. In fact even in the Comfort mode with the suspension at its softest there is really no discernible roll from inside the cabin, you turn the wheel and it turns and you continue, sort of like a roller coaster. Transitioning back and forth just turns it back and forth, it’s not pitching, rolling, or remotely feeling like it’s going to tip or even slide. It goes around corners better than any remotely normal sedan and many actual low sports cars.
Our next stop was the Lookout Mountain Nature Center. The Mother Cabrini Shrine is located on the front part of Lookout Mountain and just a few miles beyond is the Nature Area consisting of a base station with multiple hiking paths starting here.
Also located on the same area and sharing a parking lot is Boettcher Mansion. The “Mansion” was built in 1917 by Charles Boettcher as a summer home and hunting retreat after more or less retiring from building a fortune in hardware, cement, sugar beets, and cattle. Boettcher is a very prominent name in the Denver area and in 1972 the family donated the property to Jefferson County for public use and enjoyment. These days it is open to the public and also used for events such as weddings and conferences. While neither the Nature Center nor the Mansion were open at the hour that we were there, we walked all around them and then decided against taking a hike as it was cold and the car was comfortable so we moved on to our next stop just around the corner.
The inside of the cabin of our tester was trimmed in Black Nappa Leather (an option amongst several color choices, standard is black MB-Tex with “Dynamica” (their version of Suede/Alcantara) centers, with heated seats (but curiously without the ventilated seat function in ours).
The seats were obviously electric with three memory settings for both driver and passenger. As has usually and preferably (but not always) been the case with modern Mercedes’, the seat controls are mounted on the door panel and every part of it is powered including the headrest as well as the extending thigh bolster. Note the button blank for the ventilated seat option which this car did not have, that’s something that thirty years ago would not have occurred, there would simply have been two different switches and trim pieces in the catalog instead of the reminder that the option was not selected. As with all things, little money savings are needed for manufacturers these days and this car is based on a car that starts at a relatively low price point compared to this edition. That speaker grille though is just sublime.
It was a very simple matter to find a comfortable position for myself which I left it in all week, but my son decided he needed to try every possible variation including the lowest and furthest from the dash which basically put him in the rear seat to the most upright and aloft position all the way forward, at which point I was stopped and refused to move as I felt he was just too close to the dashboard. In any case he convinced me that the range of motion was more than adequate.
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Fascinating review, mainly because it drives home just how simple my own needs and desires are. And how out of reality the modern automobile market is for me. Two weeks ago, I picked up my latest playtoy, a 2002 Honda Civic Si. Mileage well into six figures, I’ve known the previous owner for decades and am well conversant with how she cares for cars. And at $3000.00, all I had to do was hit my friendly local bank teller for a withdrawal from my reserve account to complete the transaction.
Tech? I’m happily living with air conditioning, power windows, power sunroof and a five speed. I’m not so happily living with a single DIN stereo by JVC that is the same model I had installed in my Porsche 924S about ten years ago. No Bluetooth (a deal killer), no Pandora (inconvenient), no Sirius XM (ditto). Best Buy will be visited sometime before Memorial Day.
And then I look at the tech at the Mercedes. For me it’s overkill. Massive overkill. I could have the same run on these roads with that car and my Honda, and I seriously doubt that the Mercedes would give me any extra pleasure. Considering that I normally drive in the summer with both windows down and the sunroof open (yes, even AC is kind of optional to me – credit that to being a biker), 3/4ths of the tech in this car is probably never going to get used. Other than the sound system.
$80,000? Huh? I haven’t bought a new car since my first 2000 Jeep Cherokee Sport, and the constantly escalating prices is why. With a realistic budget of $15,000.00 (maybe $20,000.00 – and both these figures mean financing, which I don’t like) it’s pretty obvious that my ownership of one of these will happen about 2030. As an 80th birthday present, secure in the realization that I probably won’t be able to afford the repairs as the systems deteriorate.
Thank you for a wonderful science fiction short story, I enjoyed it immensely. Who does buy these cars, anyway?
Nobody, at least not for another three years. People who obtain them from new generally lease.
Myself, I’m in the market for another manual-transmission subcompact while I can still get one, the plan is to buy new and keep it 10-12 years like I did the last one by which time EVs should be cheap, proven and long-range enough to make the jump.
If I didn’t live in road-salt country I’d do needed repairs to my ’08 Toyota Yaris and keep it like Paul’s doing with his xBox but I do and it’s (finally) starting to rust.
Who buys them? Relatively few people buy them, most (67%) are leased. My neighborhood is awash in leased Mercedes vehicles because no one wants them for the long term. They are unreliable as they age and , in my experience most Mercedes drivers want the newest items. They have no interest in being seen driving an older model.
Finally, I appreciate this article as it’s well crafted and well written. But I have no interest owning one of these. It’s not an enthusiasts’ vehicle, it smacks of someone who’s susceptible to fashion and can barely afford the payments.
If your figures are correct, it would appear that one in three people actually DO purchase instead of leasing. But not everyone wants to tie up that much money even if they have it to spend. And others have enough to be able to keep themselves supplied with the newest and latest.
Thank you for the compliment, I appreciate it.
100% agreed, Syke. I haven’t had a car payment since 1988.
Thanks for the great tour. Some of this was familiar from a family trip to Denver about 5 years ago. Not sure how we missed the Cabrini shrine though.
Like Syke, the idea of an $80k car sort of makes my head hurt. But then again, isn’t a high end car supposed to be 4-5x the cost of a modest new car? I wonder how many of these are purchases rather than leased.
You had me giggling at the “handcrafted by” plaque. Who would have figured that one of the finest automotive craftsmen in Germany would be named Esposito? An imported car made by imported craftsmen – now *that* is luxury! 🙂
A friend of mine “handcrafted” Toyota engines at the Cambridge, Ontario plant for seven years . He never got to sign anything. All he got for his trouble was carpal-tunnel syndrome and a job layoff because he could no longer shuffle bearing shells fast enough.
By “handcrafting” they mean that one individual builds the entire engine from block to finished piece. This is fairly rare in the automotive world. What your friend did was most likely work on an assembly line doing a repetitive job (Peg A into Slot B, repeat).
Thanks for the great tour!
As a lifelong Illinoisan, the Land of Lincoln manufacturer plate immediately caught my eye. Where’d the front one go? 😉
I’m kinda in Syke’s camp, though my fleet is considerably more modern than his, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating the GLC and very much enjoying Jim’s review. And it was a great reminder of a wonderful long weekend my wife and I spent in Jefferson County five years ago, including a concert at Red Rocks (and a rental C-Max). But I struggle with a Mercedes that has the numbers 6 and 3 in its name, and doesn’t have a 6.3 liter SOHC V8. Somehow, I don’t think those 14.2 “ disks would fit inside the 14” wheels of a 300SEL 6.3, or even the 15-inchers of a Grösser 600.
When I bought my ’08 Prius a couple years ago (a car that is tech-heavy its age) I played with all the buttons and gadgets for about a month and largely haven’t touched them since. I *still* can’t bring myself to stare at a TV screen in the dash to drive backwards – my neck swivels just fine.
I’ve gotten used to the rearview camera on my wife’s Dart GT and have learned to love it. May add one to the Honda when I do the stereo, although the one that really needs it is the Kia van.
One thing I wish you could do to those cameras is switch them on at will. While mirrors work find while swapping lanes there are occasional moments when I’d prefer to have the camera. Like at the I-95 southbound/I-64 eastbound interchange, with Arthur Ashe Boulevard about 1/4 mile down the road. And AAB is the exit for The Diamond and Richmond Flying Squirrels games. Attempting to do that shuffle thru the ramps and into the exit lane for a 1830 ballgame on a weekday can be nerve wracking.
These are really rather nice. Overall, I think it’s a very different experience than the Jaguar F-PACE SVR which is a little more raw and on, all the time. It’s probably very similar to the Porsche Macan Turbo and BMW X3 M.
But “hot vee” engines make me nervous, which is why I don’t have a CPO 750i/Li.
It is an extremely livable vehicle. Why does the hot V setup make you nervous? I understand re: heat but if nothing else at least it’s extremely accessible as opposed to some other twin turbo setups where they are crammed aside the block next to the wheelwells, making access difficult (Audi 2.7t comes to mind). I don’t think exterior air flow is really that much better down there with underbody shrouds etc anyway.
Thanks for a very nice review.
Hot-V makes great sense in V engines. Heat rises, so cold intake below the block and hot exhaust above the block are ideal. It’s not the traditional setup because it doesn’t work with a single carburetor. With port or direct injection that’s no longer a problem. Hot-V is the logical setup today.
Reminds me of a R&T review back when I used to read it, Very professional indeed!
You really took me along with you; sounds like a fun way to spend a day. It’s the kind of car I would really enjoy driving for about a day or so on the open road. A real monster!
I have never seen something like this in Eugene, and probably won’t anytime soon, so you’ve given me the only exposure to it I’m likely to have.
Thanks for the motor tour, Jim, looks like that was a grand day.
The rabid crossover does nothing for me, unfortunately. My 83 grand would go to a GS-F without a second thought. A few more years of being bludgeoned by the crossover reality may bring me around somewhat, but for now I want my performance car to be sedan/coupe, my SUV to be an SUV, and a crossover to be a practical tool. This one is breaking the rules of a polite society and I’m not yet having any of it 🙂
Somewhere you just made some product planner perk up with excitement that someone is still potentially interested in a sedan/coupe!
Conceptually I understand your point completely but would add that this car and some others like it really kind of change the conventional wisdom a bit, Sure, perhaps the same powertrain in a conventional sedan/coupe MIGHT be even better but as is the performance is already so much better than most performance sedans/coupes in many/most respects that the extra practicality and livability really might make one think different as it could wear multiple hats without much if any compromise depending on actual use case.
It seems that Mercedes really nailed the looks on this car. It manages to look special without being garish — kind of like what a Mercedes ought to look like. And it’s well-proportioned, too… the image of the AMG parked next to the GLE “Coupe” at the Amphitheater is interesting, because your test car is such a more pleasing design.
And oddly, I never thought about what the AMG initials actually stood for… now I know.
“It manages to look special without being garish”
If only that 3 pointed star on the grille could be a little smaller. 🙂
At least it doesn’t light up. I guess my standards have changed…
I’m sure the lighted star is a dealer-installed option.
If it has a distance sensor in the star, the lighted star isn’t available.
The bling bling, don’t even think about taking these off-road rims, AMG engraved exhaust tips and the overcompensating for something three pointed star say anything but understated.
On the other hand compared to the newer Lexus CUVs and GM full size trucks, it is pretty tame.
One criticism that I have with all Merc’s that use this type of exhaust tip setup. They are leg burners. I learned the hard way several times ( slow learner apparently) that its easy to get your leg scorched by casually brushing next to one loading the rear compartment.
A very timely, excellent review, and enjoyable travel log. Here in SoCal, the GLC is Mercedes-Benz’s bread-and-butter car. It is not difficult to understand why. The enormous three-pointed star provides entre for those who care, the car is highly configurable, ranging in price from $40K to $80K , at 183” long and under 75” wide the size is perfect for urban driving, and the styling is handsome not radical.
My cousin received this highly optioned ($78K sticker) but pedestrian (no signed engine) AMG 43 version for Christmas three years ago. For her it has been an excellent car with excessive tire wear being one of the few issues. I find the ride a bit firm even in Comfort mode but at 6’1” agree with Jim that the rear seat in such a small vehicle is perfectly comfortable. The 63 seems a bit excessive as the 43, with a bi-turbo V6 and 385/384 HP/torque rating has plenty of scoot.
A nice place to be.
Thank you. Your cousin’s car does look quite nice, and must be very well optioned indeed as the GLC43 starts at $59,500 for the 2020 model year. And yes, those power levels are likely very satisfactory already.
A terrific review of an intriguing Mercedes. Paul is right as spending some time in the pilot’s seat would be a wonderful way to spend some time. It sounds like you chose the ideal setting to experience the goodness of this red beauty.
I’m sure if you bought Mrs. Jim one she wouldn’t mind.
She would in fact not mind at all but is also wise enough to have decided that she would not need the extras that this provides over the more pedestrian trim levels. 🙂
I got very lucky with the weather that day. The rest of the week was less agreeable in that respect but the winter tires did their job extremely well, even in the larger sizes as fitted here so it was able to give a well rounded accounting.
Thanks for the great write-up on tour! I lived in Denver-area for eight years and loved the close proximity of mountains and outdoor activities. So much that I hadn’t gotten to do everything I wanted to do in Colorado during the eight years. This article gave me lot of wonderful memories.
I learnt the hard way about the carburetted engines in my first year of residence there when driving at higher altitude. I got stuck on the mountain pass road when my car couldn’t muster any more power to climb. No room to turn around to head down to the lower altitude. Thankfully, the park ranger knew the trick and managed to get my car started. He also gingerly turned my car around on the two-lane road with quick drop-off at the edge. The ranger advised me not to take any road that goes above 7,000 feet in the future if I drive a vehicle with carburetted engines.
We always stop by Beau Jo’s pizzeria in Idaho Springs on I-70 for pizza every time we head to the mountains or home in Denver.
I definitely miss Colorado…
The ranger advised me not to take any road that goes above 7,000 feet in the future if I drive a vehicle with carburetted engines.
I don’t know what exactly was wrong with your car, but that advice is of course utterly absurd. Tell that to the inhabitants of Leadville (el. 10,151′) and so many other high elevation places in Colorado. Folks have been driving up Pikes Peak (el. 14.115′) since the road was built in 1915. We drove our 1965 Coronet wagon up the even higher Mt. Evans road, as have hundreds of thousands of others, before fuel injection was ever installed on any mass-market cars in the US.
I drove my 40 hp VW all over the highest roads and back-country mining roads, over some very high passes. It ran like a top.
Altitude does reduce power, but not to the extent that a car suddenly can’t make it over a pass or grade. Something obviously was wrong with your car. It might have been vapor lock, which used to be a fairly common ailment back in the ’60s and earlier. But pulling over and waiting for the engine to cool so the fuel stops boiling cured it.
I miss Colorado too. I spent lots of time driving my carburated cars there, exploring every possible little back “road” and driving over the high passes. I could stay with some friends who had a cabin at almost 9000′, right at the edge of Rocky Mt. National Park. I’ve hiked just about every trail in that spectacular place.