Red Is The New Black Series

After all the recent comment on Tyre Roar about hybrids, electric cars, and failing business, it seems ripe for an injection of colour, and brawn. So here, leaked fashionably early, as is par for the course with any new car of recent years, is the upcoming Mercedes C63 AMG Black Series Coupé.

After the brilliant looking, and much lauded CLK Black of 2009, there's been a great deal of hope (and pressure) for Mercedes-Benz to follow it up honourably.

The SL Black sported similarly outrageous flared wheel arches, but was generally regarded as 'too much', in its weight, cost, and brutality, and a retrograde step as far as driving dynamics are concerned.

Of course there's no word yet on what the C63 Black will be like to pedal, but the C63 AMG Coupé has already received good reviews, while AMG has a strong and expanding fan base.

I reckon AMG have really nailed the looks of this one. The standard C Class coupé has been criticised for the clumsy styling around its rear flanks, with a large expanse of uninterrupted panel making the side appear rather bland and spoiling the proportions around the dwarfed rear wheels.

The Black however, with its steroidal blisters, air intakes, and what appear to be 20" forged rims from the SLS, gains the purposeful stance of its CLK lineage, and looks delicious.

My favourite details are the rear arch outlets, which looks like they've come straight from the back of the £300,000 Ferrari 599 GTO.


As a possible last hurrah for the venerable 6.2 litre naturally aspirated V8, the Black will get around 517bhp, up from the 487bhp available on the C63 with AMG Performance Pack. There'll be a small weight saving from those gorgeous bucket seats and some carbon trim, but the DTM-esque bodywork mods mean that the overall drop will only be in the region of 20 kilos.

Arriving next year, hopefully the C63 Black Series will also show BMW the error of their ways in making the M3 GTS a limited production model sporting a ludicrous £100k sticker price. BMW may have been vindicated somewhat by selling out the entire allocation, but for those who view cars as more than speculative profiteering exercises, the M3 GTS was slightly obscene.

Having a price more around £80,00 and existing as a standard production model, rather than a limited run halo special could, and should, mean AMG have a winner on their hands. After the CLS 63 and SLS of late, Mercedes' in-house tuning skunk-works really is on a roll. Certainly, it's starting to embarrass the M Division in Munich, who are desperately seeking petrolhead redemption with the 1M and M5 after the sorry debacles of the X5 M and X6 M.


Leaving the business case aside, the main comfort from these leaked pictures is that the C63 Black Series looks right, inside and out, even in red. A possible modern classic, and a candidate for most desirable car of 2012. You saw it here first.

As a final thought, a big part of this car's draw will be it's normally aspirated growl-and-crackle noise. It's a shame to write a blog on AMGs and not include this most wonderful of their assets, so here's my favourite motoring journo, Chris Harris of evo Magazine, demonstrating some of those 'good reviews' for the C63 Coupé I mentioned earlier. Volume up...



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