Mercedes-AMG C 63 S Aero Editionreview:Buckle up for an F1 experience on the road

Because I am, sadly, even more foolish than I am fearless, I once agreed to take a ride in a two-seat Formula One car.

Mercedes-AMG C 63 S Aero Edition

Because I am, sadly, even more foolish than I am fearless, I once agreed to take a ride in a two-seat Formula One car. I was even excited about it, until they explained that the G-forces were so severe that I would be required to hold down a “dead man’s switch”, so that if I blacked out mid-corner and my finger slipped off, the driver would know to slow before my floppy body was broken. I became even more concerned when the giraffe-like model who had the turn before me got out of the car and vomited copiously into a bin.

It is impossible to express just how great my levels of awe for F1 drivers are, having endured the experience. Just breathing, keeping your head on your neck and your organs in their original locations as you experience 4Gs in a corner – which feels like being body-slammed by a hippo – is hard enough. I only did two laps and I still felt sick eight hours later.

Somehow they also race each other while operating a steering wheel so complex that people who buy second-hand F1 cars from Ferrari (yes, that’s a thing billionaires do) require five hours of training in how to use it. For some reason, sporty car companies think we all want racing-car wheels, which is why they’re mostly no longer wheel-shaped at all – funny flat bottoms are de rigueur – and bristling with functionality.

I found the (admittedly sexy-looking) steering wheel on the Mercedes-AMG C 63 S Aero Edition so overwhelmingly crammed with choice that I had to ring someone and ask what all the buttons were for. There are touch-sensitive, track-pad-style ones, and large, graphical dials that can be turned or pushed, and then more stubby ones that seem to adjust some of the same things (these allow you to create shortcuts for your favourite settings, apparently). In all there are 21 controls. Even Lewis Hamilton would be baffled.

You can choose the timbre of your exhaust, various suspension, dynamic and traction settings, and what level of brazen berserkness you’d like from the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 and its supercar-like 375kW and 700Nm.

The steering wheel is overwhelmingly crammed with choice

There’s also a setting called Comfort, but no one can say why. It’s a bit like me having a brevity button. Or Donald Trump a mute switch. The C 63 S is many things – firm, fiercely focused and so sharp in the steering department that a slight twitch of your hands could see you parked up a tree – but it is not comfortable.

Sometimes there is a price to pay for being intimately connected with the road in a way that makes driving enthusiasts all misty-eyed and dry-mouthed, and in this case that price is being able to feel every single imperfection in the road surface, all the time. It can be slightly tiring.

Yet on the right bit of road – or better yet, the beautifully smooth racetrack I stumbled onto – it is astonishingly good fun: bombastically loud, searingly quick (0 to 100km/h in 3.9 seconds) and magnetised to the road around corners. There’s a taut tension about this AMG at all times; it feels like a sprinter on the blocks, between “get set” and the gun, but it makes for a visceral connection between car and driver when it finds the right conditions.

I also love the angry, V8-racer shape of the front, particularly the low, mean chin spoiler, although it does look like the designer sloped off for a nap, or maybe a small sob, when he got to the rear of this coupe. The tech-tastic steering wheel does feel nice in your hands, too, with its mix of carbon fibre and Alcantara. I might have even worked out how to use it with a bit more time.

There are many other Benzes you can buy, of course, and even other C-Class variants that will waft you about with considerably more compliant comfort levels. But none of them is as exciting, or as expensive, as the $188,600 C 63 S Aero Edition. What it delivers, with its hyped-up aggression and nailed-down ride and handling, is just a tiny taste of what it’s like to go racing. So, if you’re going to buy one, maybe invest in your own track first.

MERCEDES-AMG C 63 S AERO EDITION

ENGINE: 4.0-litre, twin-turbo V8 (375kW/700Nm). Average fuel 10.3 litres per 100km TRANSMISSION: 9-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive

PRICE: $188,600

RATING: ★★★½