Everything’s different and more complex, yet it’s still a star stomper.

Price: $226,200 as tested.

Powertrain: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol plug-in electric hybrid; maximum 500kW/1020Nm; eight-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive.

How big: 4834mm long; 1990mm wide; 2875mm high.

We like: Technical reach; environmental improvements; superb chassis; looks great.

Not so much: Performance modes are a science lesson; has gained weight; battery and cable pack reduces boot capacity.

(Photography: Callum Crawley).

FORMATTING high-performance versions of everyday cars requires a few knacks, but comparatively speaking, life on the C63 development squad might well have been relatively cruisy until day of ‘that memo.’

Head office’s edict must have read like a challenge from Taskmaster. 

Basically, in creating another generation of their famous master blaster, the squad had to make it more powerful than ever, while also delivering hitherto unheard-of efficiency and economy. Four-wheel-drive would now seem appropriate, too. 

Oh, and they could only do it with … sorry, this cannot be right … JUST four cylinders.

Imagine the sound of multiple German engineers’ jaws dropping. Talk about asking for the impossible.

And, yet, they’ve done it. The first four-cylinder C63 is everything the high-ups expected it to be. Brawnier and brainer. The most complex edition yet, yet fundamentally as straight forward as ever. The most powerful four-cylinder engine in the world.

So it hits all its marks, even manages to feel familiar, regardless that it is patently very different to every forebear, most immediately obviously in respect to soundtrack, which is still nice, but not remotely V8-ish. How will it go?

Now it’s hit New Zealand, arriving just over a year after first revealing, games can begin. And registrations counts will tell all. C63 has been the most popular AMG model with Kiwis. If this one doesn’t pick up the same level of plate count, then clearly that will say everything, right?

Kiwis are enthusiastic in respect to technology uptake; we love new gadgets. Mercedes here will be hoping that enthusiasm will count for something. For C63 internationally, those past 12 months haven’t been easy. In every preceding market it has stormed into, the reception from those who’ve had an eight pot addiction has been cool. So many have asked that the clock be to turned back.

Daft idea, of course. Old-school pride and prejudice has to be ignored by this maker, because of the way the world is heading. And even if they did want to suddenly return this car the old ways, realistically they cannot. 

Regardless that the last of the V8s, that beautiful 4.0-litre twin turbo, was a compact engine, it still won’t fit into this new model’s engine bay. Benz is emphatic the latest C-Class has been designed purely for four-cylinder powerplants. Indeed, lifting this bonnet makes you wonder how they got the new AMG in. As is, packaging in not only electric nubbins but also a humongous Garret turbocharger appears to have been a massive challenge. Everything only just squeezes in.

So it’s a four for the foreseeable (and likely a pure electric ultimately), and you have to accept this is the way it is set to always be. Once that bridge is crossed, the more relevant question about the C63 is whether it still makes sense. 

In regard to that one? Yes, it does. Moreover, the C63 now is as ‘high performance’ as the C63 has ever been. It’s faster, it’s still furious.

In saying that, the anger management is clearly wholly different. Most pressingly, intending owners need to understand that the car isn’t as analogue as it once was. With the V8s, because of the V8, you got a fairly simply weapon. The engine was all. You simply pointed, pressed hard on the throttle, then unleashed roaring, tyre-immolating awesomeness. It was an automotive Thor’s Hammer.

The new is the car world’s equivalent of … ? Well, it’s kind of like comparing Apollo and SpaceX. The one that got man to the Moon was of course stunning, but simple. As they say, your phone has vastly more computing power. By comparison, what’s been achieved now is so much smarter. Calling it ‘complex’ is too simplistic.

Inasmuch as the latest C63 presents huge numbers on paper, it’s reality is that it is no mere swing and smash device. The number of modes and possible settings that opportune the driver is quite overwhelming. Fair to say that however you prefer your performance, the C63 can probably accommodate it. But it will take you a while to figure everything out.

Too much? It’s certainly a good thing that takes time to learn. 

There are screens upon screen of involvement, and maybe just the only one that can be disregarded is the sub-page with the extreme performance mode chapter that has templates of fantastic circuits onto which you can overlay your lap times. Not because it’s not a great idea, more because it’s an idea that excludes NZ. Not one track here has been incorporated. By comparison Australia, which shares our spec, has managed to get Stuttgart to include Sydney Motorsport Park and Bathurst.

But anyway, the other impression from lifting the bonnet is that it reinforces that the internal combustion engine element is only half the story. The other side is that plug-in hybrid system; the element that ensures this is the first C63 that has to pay Road User Charge is also the part that even more reflects the skillset of the brand’s F1 team.

To say it has the heart of an F1 car isn’t as far-fetched as it might sound, in that even though everything relies intrinsically on a combustion engine, the sum total of its oomph relies on much more. 

Sure, the core 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine was created to achieve high-performance goals. The additional power coming from a turbocharger spun up to speed by an electric motor to eliminate the usual lag you get while the exhaust pressure builds is just like an F1 car. 

Another two-speed electric motor on the rear axle works together with the engine for that incredible combined power output, putting it to the road or track through all four wheels while a new rear-wheel steering system and host of driving modes help you keep it pointing in the right direction. Unless, of course, you choose to deliberately kick the tail out with the Drift Mode.

The effect of this is jolting. And I mean that. You simply have to temper throttle input from low speed, else the transition from pure ICE to additional electric assist will buck in abruptly, with a heck of a bang as the rear axle motors come into play. 

That’s a shock, what should awe is that the PHEV element also allows it achieve amazingly low fuel consumption for an AMG. 

It’s the first C63 in which I’ve seen a genuine sub-10 litres per 100km outcome from a week’s driving (it got down to 6.9L/100km on a long drive). It can even sidle about in silence for short distances on electric power alone. Is this a good thing? I know some AMG owners who frankly do not care even slightly about the cost of fuel. Or perhaps even the environment. Yet they must be in the minority, else why would Benz have taken their star this way?

Unleash it and … well, watch out. Belting performance comes as naturally to this car as breathing does to us. The cited times for 0-100km, 0-200kmh and 0-to headline-making demerit point accruals relate all you need to know. It has performance of a kind that not that long ago was the preserve of proper supercars. Like all AMGs, it’s faster than you will ever likely find out. Peak power doesn't arrive until reasonably high in the revs, which in any gear translates into extremely quick forward motion.

If wholly employed, the shove is brutal. The sound that comes with it? As said, it’s ‘different.’ Not poor, but bellowing V8 rumbles are soul-stirring. The C63 hasn’t got that authority at play any more. It’s a different world when amplified pre-mixed sounds have to be pipped, not just through the cabin but also externally. Old-school C63s would be heard before they were seen. Not this one.

Anyone who thinks this car is a silver arrow purely to be fired down a straight road is totally misjudging the engineering. If anything, the full beauty of this Benz shows in bends. The all-wheel drive is hugely beneficial on winding roads; once through an apex, you can quickly feed in grunt with confidence. 

You learn it doesn't just reward keen drivers so much as delivers confidence to anyone. Push on, of course, and the better your skillset, the more rewarding it is. At times will make you question what you thought you knew about physics. The big brakes scrub off speeds in a very controlled manner and, even if you turn in carrying a little too much speed the car just seems to grip. The steering feel is superb; the way the transmission manages power delivery excellent.

Circuit mode is a bold choice on any public thoroughfare; even Sport and Sport Plus are bordering on too much. The reason for gong to those, is that the extra zip modes incrementally sharpen the throttle response and gear shifts and turn up the boost from the motor, but still maintain useful driver assists. 

In Sport Plus and thereafter the gearbox fully is snappy, banging in ratios with more intent, and the manual setting means just that. The transmission won't up-shift for you, allowing you sit on or near the (notably smooth) rev limiter if that's what you want to do.

Six-piston fixed brake calipers up front and floating one-piston calipers at the rear feature, but as well as mechanical braking, there are also four levels of regenerative braking ranging from nearly no regen to full one-pedal driving. 

As much as it is a rocket ship, it can be a refined one, too. Dial everything back to the Comfort setting, it happily regresses to rear-drive and is almost docile. While the suspension is firm, it’s no absolute bone-shaker. What might raise comment is that the sports seats do provide limited amounts of comfort; so on any journey beyond a couple of hours might become a touch tiresome.

The power of pedigree expresses more in the styling. Wheelarch extensions, the bonnet gills, some extra aero and unique alloys with fat rubber make the C63 easily picked; it looks properly warlike still.

The C63 trims wholly to expectation; every touchable and viewable material feels and looks top-notch. Moreover, while the powertrain divorces from old AMG ideals, the cabin design emphatically does not. You get the best of what's available in the standard C-Class, plus some trick bits.

The interior provisions with two sports seat options, the AMG Performance buckets in the test example being the heavily bolstered kind that arrive with a pack that also adds an AMG Performance steering wheel in nappa leather.

The steering wheel demands four spokes and they are heavily loaded with multifunction haptics; there are also two rotary additional controls that act as shortcuts for the damper settings and xhaust, or something else should you prefer. 

The main digital cluster is large rectangular digital instrument panel a portrait-aspect infotainment touchscreen in the centre running the latest MBUX, with inbuilt satellite navigation with augmented reality view. The NZ specification also delivers a panoramic glass sunroof, ambient interior lighting, wireless smartphone charging, a head-up display, heated front seats and a Burmester 3D surround-sound system.

As mentioned in the first drive story earlier this year, if heading off for a weekend, pack light. The battery array and electric motor being sited underneath the boot very obviously hits luggage space. Whereas the standard C-Class has 455 litres’ capacity, and the old C63 had 435, this C63 offers 280. That’s only a touch better than a Suzuki Swift.

Easy to see why. The part of the compartment nearest the seats is half as deep as the area behind. FYI, this issue hasn’t swayed MBNZ into returning the C63 wagon - which also suffers the same, but is more capacious nonetheless - back into the fold.

The regular C-Class has a five star ANCAP rating, but whether than applies to the C63? AMG versions generally don’t get tested independently. 

As expected, it outfits with a massive suite of advanced driver assist systems including autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, active lane-keeping assist, lane-departure warning, rear cross-traffic alert, blind-spot monitoring, and adaptive cruise control.

There’s also a driver attention monitor and fatigue alert, as well as a 360-degree camera system and front and rear parking sensors. There are 10 airbags, one a front-centre device that protects against head clashes between front-seat occupants in a crash.

Sure, it’s a shame it departs the V8 era. But look at the baggage it leaves behind. Plus, for all the downsizing in the engine bay, but there's nothing little about the performance that it offers.