New C63 AMG set for 1,000Nm four-cylinder engine | GRR
It seems the age of the big Mercedes-AMG V8 is almost over, as the company has revealed the next C63 will use a turbocharged four-cylinder hybrid powertrain.
In a 4,500-word document on the future of AMG Mercedes, which sets out its plans for “superior performance and impressive driving dynamics with maximum efficiency”, plans that the company says will continued to benefit from the link between the road car company, Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains (the company that builds Merc’s F1 engines) and the Mercedes F1 Team. As part of this new strategy the big V8s that we know and love will become less and less prevalent. Which is where he C63 AMG comes in.
Mercedes’s M139 engine, the same turbocharged four-cylinder that you’ll find in the A45, CLA45 and GLA45 AMG, is the unit that’ll be leaned on heavily in the future, forming part of a new high-performance powertrain that’ll find its first home in the next generation of C63.
Mercedes has said that where the M139 engine is mounted transversely in cars like the A45, it’ll next be installed longitudinally, heavily reworked to include an electric motor assisted turbocharger and be paired to an electric motor. The promise? Power and torque levels “that even surpasses comparable, current vehicles with V8 engines without hybrid drive”, with initial figures of 816PS (600kW) and 1,000Nm (740lb ft).
The company has also confirmed that AMG electric models are on the horizon, and the first will arrive before the end of the year with a new EQ model – fear not, the first electric AMG will not be an EQC or EQA. And by the sounds of it they will use the 43 and 53 AMG names, leaving the 63 title for the petrol-electric hybrids like the aforementioned C63.
Fun though it all sounds we’ll certainly miss the V8 soundtrack.