Mercedes has shown it can still make great machines. BILL McKINNON rejoices.

• The most effortlessly quick luxury car we have driven.
• Very agile and well balanced for two tonnes-plus.
• Elegant, luxuriously comfortable interior.
• Strong and safe.
• Good back-seat space.

Minus

• Night Vision is a gimmick.
• Technophobes will find the owner's manual scary.
• Overpriced against the competition.

Benz's coupe de thrill

In the buoyant Australian car market, Mercedes-Benz has stalled. Its performance has fallen behind the market's overall growth rate this year and that of its main rival, BMW.

Audi has blitzed them both, recording growth of 41.4 per cent so far this year, compared with 6.1 per cent for BMW and just 3.2 per cent for Mercedes.

Perhaps it's because more buyers are taking notice of Mercedes's recent erratic record in quality and reliability surveys. This one-time paragon of German engineering excellence has had difficulty over the past few years maintaining quality standards as the pace of technological innovation has quickened.

Some of those same buyers might be looking at other brands - cue Lexus - and seeing that they can also get a lot more car for less money. Even a status symbol as enduring as the three-pointed star has to give value in 2007. Perhaps today Mercedes is perceived as, well, just a bit dull and boring. A few years back it seemed the brand had shaken off its long-time cardigan image in Australia but it might have been stickier than the marketers thought.

There's some truth in these perceptions. Then you take a CL63 AMG for a drive and realise that the outfit that invented the car can still pull a screamer out of the box. The CL is the maker's top of the line luxury four-seater coupe. It's a beast: more than two tonnes worth and five metres long.

The new C216 range, released this year, kicks off with the $307,974 CL500, powered by the same 285kW 5.5-litre V8 found in the S Class. The CL63 AMG costs $382,974 and the 380kW 5.5-litre twin-turbo V12 CL600 is $388,974.

For $474,974 you get the 6.0-litre V12 CL65 AMG, with 450kW of power and 1000Nm (that's not a misprint) of torque.

The CL63 AMG is the most overtly sporty model in the range, even though the CL is a long, long way from being a hard-case performance car. It is extravagantly luxurious; the CL63 AMG also happens to be quicker than a Porsche 911.

Its 6.2 V8 produces 386kW of power at 6800rpm and 630Nm of torque at 5200 rpm. It's matched here with a seven-speed automatic transmission.

Running gear includes Mercedes's latest active body control suspension, with adaptive dampers that not only make millisecond adjustable responses to road impacts but also use hydraulic servo cylinders at the axles to compensate for roll and pitch movements generated by accelerating, cornering and braking. Unlike some other stablemates, the suspension is not adjustable on the CL.

Serious stopping power includes monster-sized perforated, composite front discs. Nineteen-inch alloy wheels are shod with 255/40 front and 275/40 rear tyres.

Our test car was fitted with optional 20-inchers, with the same width tyres but a slightly lower profile.

We've described the AMG 6.2 V8 in a previous test of the E63 AMG. Now it has also been fitted to the new C Class, albeit detuned a touch for that considerably lighter car, and the top of the line S Class variant.

Each time we fire it up we fall in love again. The late artist Brett Whiteley used an expression that also precisely defines the 6.2's power delivery: endlessnessism.

The CL63 reaches 100kmh in just 4.9 seconds (our watch; Mercedes claims 4.6 seconds) and doesn't even feel as if it's out of bed. It will do 160kmh in third - and you still have four gears to go.

The seven-speed uses a column-mounted shift lever with by-wire connection to the transmission itself. It's smooth and crisp in operation, more so than the same transmission in our E63 test car. Sport mode works nicely but as with all such modes it can't work out how long the straights are, so half the time on a tight road it shifts up too early. But this engine has so much grunt it's hardly an issue.

The CL is built to travel a lot faster than 100-110kmh - on A-grade European motorways - but it also works more than competently here. However, the frustrations of our speed limits would almost be enough to send you back to a Corolla. The CL has that big Benz remoteness and uninvolving character, until you realise you're not asking it any questions. Get serious with it and it becomes an immensely rewarding drive, agile and communicative for such a big car and unshakeable on rough bitumen.

Its handling is light years ahead of the E63. That car's sloppy dynamics waste the 6.2's performance potential; the tighter, tauter and more adhesive CL63 complements it.

The brakes have monstrous stopping power. They are fitted with Distronic Plus, which uses radar to judge your distance from the cars in front and will automatically apply the brakes, bringing you to a complete stop if necessary, if you are inattentive or the driver in front leaps on the anchors. It's not foolproof but it works. In heavy traffic its constant intervention can be annoying, as can the automatic cruise control, which uses the radar to keep a gap at highway speeds.

You can, thankfully, switch them off and concentrate on driving the car.

The driver's seat, a luxury armchair with sports firmness and contouring, does everything but sing the national anthem. It has pulse and dynamic massage functions, heating and cooling, long travel and is wrapped in silken-touch perforated leather.

A few tall drivers might run out of headroom, but the absence of a door pillar contributes to excellent vision all round by the usual restrictive coupe standards.

A work of art, the dash has exquisite gloss timbers and metal inlays, "virtual" instruments, a superb sound system and a new cursor-screen controller. If you were fortunate enough to own this car, you would take a week off, read the 500-page owner's manual, program your preferences - using voice activation for the radio, navigation and phone - then live happily ever after.

The night vision system uses infra-red lighting to eliminate tonal differences in darkness, then projects a greyscale image of what's in front of you onto the instrument panel. Mercedes claims it's a safety feature that turns night into day. It does nothing of the sort. It is a distracting, potentially dangerous gimmick and one wonders how Mercedes got approval to fit it.

A genuine four-seater, the CL has plenty of legroom for adults in the back stalls; it only gets a bit tight if tall occupants use most of the front seat travel. Headroom is sufficient for those up to 185cm or so.

The seat is generously padded and comfortable for two, entry and exit are easy enough for a coupe, there's a modicum of storage for your bits and pieces and the side windows open all the way. The shallow boot has a long, wide floor, no extendability and a space-saver spare underneath. Fit and finish in the test car was outstanding.

Despite its problems, the CL63AMG shows that when Mercedes Benz puts its mind to building a fast, ferocious, flash car with attitude, it can mix it with the best of them.

About as close to perfection as a luxo/GT can get.

M

Overpriced against the competition.

What competition?


Just kidding.


It might be overpriced, but, it's a Mercedes-Benz (which explains the prestige pricing) and it delivers (performance and luxury). IMO, the price is justified. More than justified...

Besides, do people in this class really give a damn about pricing? If they did, they wouldn't really be shopping in this class would they?

Lol ,IMO it's not overpriced at all,the only competetion is the Bentely CGT and it's priced the same or even more!