Mercedes-AMG E63 Estate: Is this the most exciting wagon in the world today?

IN A WORLD full of SUVs, nowadays the notion of a big performance/luxury wagon that can out-pace, out-handle, and out-cool the lot of them is refreshing indeed.

Welcome, then, to the Mercedes-AMG E63 Estate. Is this the most potent luggage-lugging family car on the planet? It could very well be.

Move over if one of these is on your tail – the fastest version can reach 290km/h…

Except… it seems Mercedes-Benz Australia won’t import it Down Under. Apparently the market just isn’t big enough… unless the company receives enough letters of complaint. Start writing, folks.

In top-spec E63 S 4Matic guise, the Affalterbach firm’s uber wagon has been engineered to not only blitz its Audi RS6 Avant rival, but also take the fight right up to the next class above. We’re talking about the expected Porsche Panamera wagon, folks.

This is big time fast and furious stuff.

… yet the E63 Estate boasts a handy 640 litres of cargo space with the rear-seats up, and a vast 1820L with the 40:20:40 electrically foldable seats laid down flat.

Mercedes-AMG reckons this is the most modified E63 in history, with both the confirmed sedan and wagon gaining 4Matic all-wheel drive (previously a left-hand drive-only proposition) to help put all the available performance to the ground.

Everything forward of the windscreen’s A-pillar base has been altered, with fatter mudguards to accommodate the 27mm wider front tracks and 20-inch alloys, a more sculptured clamshell bonnet, huge lower air-intakes, and a bespoke grille that boasts the three-pointed-star emblem.

Everything from the base of the windscreen forward is unique to the E63, including the redesigned bonnet, mudguards, headlights, grille, and bumpers.

Out back, you’ll find four chrome exhaust pipes, in a specially designed rear diffuser, while 360mm brake rotors are featured at all four corners.

The E63’s nuanced muscle-car aggression continues inside with racing-style sports seats, Alcantara-swathed flat-bottomed steering wheel, and a very liberal application of Nappa leather.

All else, including a vast triple-screen multimedia dashboard, multi-configurable ambient lighting, and overall packaging is at the apex of the premium large car class and pure regular E-Class.

The latest W213 E-Class dashboard is altered to good effect, with carbon fibre look trim, additional AMG electronics, sports seats, and Alcantara trim lifting the E63’s interior significantly.

Based on the MRA modular rear-drive architecture that underpins all Benz passenger vehicles from the W205 C-Class up, the E63 comes in two states of tune – an ‘entry-level’ 4.0-litre bi-turbo V8 pumping out 420kW of power and 750Nm of torque, as well as the S iteration, upping those outputs to 450kW and a mighty 850Nm.

Power is fed to all four wheels via a wet clutch nine-speed automatic transmission, for a 0-100k/h sprint-time of 3.6 seconds and 3.5s respectively.

At nearly five metres long, the E63 Estate is not a small car, but is perfect for transporting the family and all their clobber at warp speeds.

The slower of the latest E63 Estate can still manage 249km/h, while electing to pay extra for the AMG Driver’s package bumps that up to 290km/h – that’s some 10km/h behind the sedan version, by the way, but still something special.

Heady stuff indeed for a humble wagon. This compares to the RS6 Avant Performance’s 3.7s and 250km/h results, courtesy of its 445kW/750Nm 4.4-litre V8.

To help harness all that oomph, the multi- system features special variable damping, as part of a three-chamber air suspension system, with three modes – Comfort, Sport and Sport Plus. AMG has also fettled the engine mounts to allow for hard and soft settings.

Air suspension and AMG-specific adaptive dampers help provide a cushy ride as well as phenomenal handling and road-holding.

Extensive testing took place on the Nurburgring race circuit in Germany, but the E63 team also took their prototypes to Death Valley in Arizona, USA, for hot-weather validation, as well as in Scandinavia for cold-weather assessment.

So it is clear the Benz beats all others for muscular bragging rights, yet Mercedes-AMG has not sacrificed any practicality for performance.

Can you spot the difference between old and new? Completely different inside and out, the outgoing E63 was only sold in rear-drive guise

The E63 Estate boasts a handy 640 litres of cargo space with the rear-seats up and a vast 1820L with the 40:20:40 electrically foldable seats laid down flat. This trumps the RS6 Avant’s 565/1680L capacity by some margin.

Mercedes-AMG CEO Tobias Moers said the E63 Estate represents a blend of sporting performance and real-world utility.

“The new AMG E63 Estate combines our brand’s hallmark driving dynamics with high everyday practicality,” he said.

Mercedes-Benz Australia Pacific says only a handful of current-gen E63 AMGs (pictured) find homes here, meaning that the newcomer will probably be overlooked.

“It is not for nothing that the model has been a permanent fixture in the AMG portfolio for 40 years. The powerful engine and the intelligent all-wheel drive underpin our claim to always be at the forefront of development when it comes to performance.”

All very tempting, then, but Mercedes-Benz locally is still not convinced that there are enough buyers for its intergalactic load lugger. Even at around a cool quarter of a million dollars, the E63 Estate currently represents the pinnacle of wagon performance.

Do you think it’s a mistake to not introduce this thoroughbred estate into Australia?

Byron Mathioudakis GoAuto.com.au

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