2024 Mercedes-AMG GLC63 S E Performance review

What’s significant about the 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLC63?

Let’s start by winding the clock back 10 whole months to our first go in this car’s sedan sibling, the latest Mercedes-AMG C63.

It’s not a car that bowled us over, its four-cylinder hybrid powertrain feeling overwrought after the muscle car swagger of its older namesakes.

Well, this is the first time we’ve got our hands on the setup since. While this GLC63 is almost 150kg heavier – at a gobsmacking 2310kg – much less of that weight is being carried on its shoulders. Halving the cylinder count of a performance car feels a less sacrilegious act when the car is already something of a sin in the first place. Namely, a fast SUV.

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So what’s the setup?

A 350kW tune of the Mercedes-AMG A45’s 2.0-litre engine sits up front and pairs with a 150kW electric motor at the rear axle.

They bond via a highly adaptable all-wheel-drive system – the electric motor can actually send its power up front – with a 3.5sec 0-100km/h time as the result. In the context of EVs, that’s not exactly shocking. Engage launch control and your brain will vehemently argue that point, though.

Just like the C63, you could probably write an entire thesis on the GLC63’s technological prowess.

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Alongside its eight different driving modes you’ve three settings for the ESP and four levels of brake regen

An electrical turbocharger is a ‘direct derivative’ of AMG’s F1 program – less of a boast as Max Verstappen polishes his third title in a row, perhaps – while the electric motor is integrated with the limited-slip diff on the rear axle to help neaten the handling without the ESP needing to intervene.

There’s standard all-wheel steering, adjustable damping and – unlike the C63 – active anti-roll control. Performance SUVs are no stranger to such systems, and it’s borderline essential if they’re to properly act the role of a hiked-up sports car.

Alongside its eight different driving modes (!) you’ve three settings for the ESP and four levels of brake regen, not to mention a decision on whether you’d like to shift through its nine-speed transmission manually.

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When is the 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLC63 due in Australia?

The GLC63 will arrive on our shores in the second quarter of 2024, with a slinkier Coupe version to follow a few months later. Prices are yet to be confirmed, but there’s a good chance the 63 will start at more than $200,000. Better get saving.

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This is a performance SUV – so how does it perform?

It potters around in a rather luxurious manner when left in its default Comfort mode, which sees the engine dip into the background as often as possible – just with the full 500kW always lurking away with a simple prod past the throttle pedal’s kickdown detent.

Choosing which of its seven other drive modes you engage from there is actually deceptively simple – if it’s smooth tarmac, then the car shines brighter than we dared hope in its burly Sport+ setting.

The GLC63 turns into corners keenly, its near-perfect 51:49 weight distribution an improvement on its V8 predecessor and enough to lend it a surprisingly lively character.

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Whether the ride quality will be untied on bumpier roads remains to be seen

The rear axle really plays its part, the instant vigour of its 150kW/320Nm electric motor helping point the nose of the car right at the apex, perhaps with a full flourish of oversteer if you’ve loosened the ESP into its Sport setting (or perhaps off altogether). Absurd behaviour in an SUV, of course, albeit warranted by its equally absurd spec sheet.

Whether the ride quality will be untied on bumpier roads remains to be seen, and an SUV that only reveals its fun side with committed driving won’t prove to be the most subtle of everyday tools.

But we had a blast driving it, no longer so encumbered by concerns about how right this powertrain is for the job.

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Is it worth waiting for the 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLC63?

You’ll need to want this car for its performance credentials rather than its hybrid setup.

Its electric-only range is a paltry 12km when a stock GLC hybrid offers the same inhibited boot space (470 litres) yet a significantly more useful 129km.

But we also live in a wild world where circa-500kW SUVs aren’t uncommon, so the ability to at least slink away in silence each morning might prove a neat selling point.

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Either way, the GLC63 had less character to surrender in its switch from pure V8 to hybrid four-cylinder propulsion than the C63, and if your heart is already fixed on a chunky crossover, this looks to be a particularly intriguing take on the genre.

Whether a 2.3-tonne car of such prodigious power belongs on a climate-appeasing electrification journey is a debate for someone more academically qualified, perhaps…