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We love us some big horsepower at C&P, but then we’re also rather fond of comfort when stuck in traffic or cruising down the plentiful and rather straight roads of the UAE. So on paper, the CL63 AMG seemed right up our street and when Mercedes-Benz offered us one for a few days, we bellowed “yes” with barely contained excitement and set about putting large numbers of kilometres on it.
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Can you blame us? The CL63 will happily consume four adults through its two doors, has uber-comfy leather seats and a pretty decent stereo, but it’s the power figures that get the juices flowing. 537bhp from its bi-turbo, 5.5-litre V8 and 589lb ft of torque give the big coupe a massive amount of welly.
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Step inside and you settle into a vast amount of leather and, in our test car, wood. It woos you with the acoutrements of a modern, expensive Mercedes and even once started up and taken out onto the road, whispers along at cruising speeds with all the refinement of an S-Class. It’s incredible quiet at 120kph.
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All that changes once you mash your right foot into the thick carpet though. Set the gearbox to manual and blip down a few cogs using the wheel-mounted paddles, and the CL will rocket forward in the truest sense of the word. There’s no snap, it’s more like a shuttle lifting off – the steady but rapid introduction of massive amounts of force, accompanied by a meaningful growl from the exhausts, and all of a sudden you’re aware that the horizon seems closer than it was before. The hand-built AMG engine will propels the CL63 to 100kph in 4.5 seconds.
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The weight of the machine is disguised extremely well. Through fast sweepers the CL feels alive and strives for more tarmac, and when things tighten up the massive callipers grasp onto the 390mm front brake discs and scrub speed off remarkably quickly. If you’re planning on spanking the big Merc regularly you may want to consider the optional carbon ceramic stoppers, as while the standard cast iron rotors were effective, they felt well used by the end of our test – especially after a gravity-assisted workout on downhill stretches.
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Where the bulk does make itself known is in on more twisty roads, where despite a manful effort from the suspension, rapid changes of direction will see the CL strain against its momentum and the grip of the 20-inch, 295mm-wide rear tyres. Strained squeals herald the arrival of Herr Oversteer, which will lose the CL ground against smaller, more nimble sports cars, but is telegraphed well to the driver, allowing him or her to indulge in a few dabs of oppo while exiting the corner.
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Think of the CL63 as a regular Mercedes-Benz, with the comfort and cruising ability inherent in the brand, but with a thorough training in the art of performance by AMG. It’ll gobble up motorways and most traffic on them, and give fast sweeping roads a good seeing to, but it’ll never take off its rather stylish suit while doing so. As you can see by the photo above, we’re big fans.
Pics: Khaled Termanini
