Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door 2019 review

No word on local pricing yet, but you shouldn’t expect it to be cheap…

In Germany, for example, the most expensive version tops out at around 185,000 Euro (around $300k), and with our luxury car tax, you can expect to be paying more than a straightforward conversion in Australia.

Now I could waffle on about seat materials (a sumptuous leather, if you’re asking), or the LED headlights, the 12.3-inch multimedia screen, the alloy wheels spanning 19 to 21 inches, or the meticulously crafted cabin forged from fine materials. But that's not what you're really here for, is it?

There is plenty of performance kit included.

This is a ground-up build (though based on the E-Class platform) from those mad scientists at AMG, after all, so let's just get to the performance stuff. Those whopping great engines and AMG transmission aside (there is an entire sub-heading dedicated to that very thing, after all), there is plenty of performance kit included here.

For one, the rear wing is flush-mounted to the body, extending and retracting at different speeds to maximise downforce, there are the giant brakes with brightly coloured brake calipers, and - in the 63 and 63 S - AMG’s air suspension and four-wheel steering.

It's no mean feat to make something this big look quite so sporting, but the AMG 4-Door pulls it off, emitting the kind of menacing air of a well-dressed mafia boss.

The front end (actually available in three styles of design, depending on what pack - Chrome , Night, Carbon, Aerodynamics - you opt for) looks loud and angry, the slotted-snout both bulging forward from the car and angled down toward the road surface like it’s sniffing out prey.

The front end is available in three styles of design, depending on what pack you opt for.

At the rear, a hatch-style opening gives you access to a fairly spacious boot area, and there are quad trapezoid exhaust tips (63 models) perched below the rounded-off rear end. 

Customisation is the order of the day here, and GT 4-Door Coupe customers can pretty comprehensively change the exterior of the car, from new and aggressive aerodynamic venting in the sportier versions, to an abundance of polished chrome highlights in the editions designed to look more luxurious.

Customers can change the exterior of the car, from aerodynamic venting to polished chrome highlights.

The customisation continues inside, too, where you can spec an extra seat in the rear bench, transforming it from four to five seats (though it’s a cost option). Elsewhere inside, expect a sports-focused and tech-heavy cabin, with well-bolstered leather seats, and eight vehicle control buttons (things like suspension, exhaust and rear-wing settings) that straddle a centre console wide enough to land a jumbo on.

It’s swimming with giant screens, digital touch pads and interior lighting, too.

Let’s be clear here; the AMG 4-Door Coupe is a lot of car in every possible way. It stretches some 5054mm in length (roughly the same as a seven-seat Mazda CX-9), 1871mm in width and a (relatively slinky) 1447mm in height. 

And the result of all that room is a spacious cabin - especially for front-seat riders, where shoulder and headroom is ample, the seats comfortable, and the view out of the front and side windows good. 

In the back seat, you’ll find headroom and toe room a little limited, and the taller members of our party struggled with the hard plastic seatbacks pushing into their knees when the front seats were pushed back, but the leather-swathed space is largely comfortable and a fine way to spend time.

That hatch-style boot opens to reveal a 461-litre space, and there are two ISOFIX attachment points in each of the window seats in the back. In its four-seat configuration, a centre table/console doubles as a semi-work space, with USB connection points and twin cupholders, matching the two up front.

There are two engine options on offer, and three different states of tune.

The entry-level engine (a term we use lightly), is the 3.0-litre, six-cylinder engine housed inside the GT 53 4MATIC+, which will thunder 320kW/520Nm to all four tyres via a nine-speed AMG automatic. It’s paired with an 'EQ Boost' semi-hybrid system, adding 16kW/250Nm in short bursts, like on take-off or overtaking manoeuvres. 

The turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 is good for 430kW/ 800Nm.

The big bopper, though, is where the GT 4-Door is at its most raucous, with the turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 good for 430kW/ 800Nm (paired with the same nine-speed AMG automatic) in the GT 63 4MATIC+, and 470kW and a whopping 900Nm in the GT 63 S 4MATIC+.

The six-cylinder car will scream from 0-100km/h in a not-too-shabby 4.5 seconds, while the GT 63 drops that time to 3.4 seconds. Spring for the S, and you’ll knock off the sprint in a staggering 3.2 seconds. Top speeds are 285km/h, 310km/h and 315km/h respectively. 

Ah, not so good. The V6 will sip a relatively impressive 9.1-9.4L100km on the combined cycle, but the V8s require 11.1-11.2L/100km for the 63, and 11.3L/100km for the 63 S.

Your shoulders slump slightly as you walk towards this mammoth AMG GT. You just can't help it; there's a part of your mind that registers the sheer size of the thing, immediately thinking it will surely handle like a boat in rough seas on anything even approaching a challenging and twisting road.

So the fact that it doesn't - really, it doesn't - is even more rewarding, because it takes you by surprise. 

Though it probably shouldn't, really. This is, after all, a car designed from the barest of frames up by AMG's engineers, and they have thrown countless hours (and even more stabilising structure under the bodywork) into stiffening the chassis and sharpening the steering.

This is a car designed from the barest of frames up by AMG's engineers.

To promote it as simply a four-door version of the GT supercar is, to be honest, not entirely accurate; it's closer in both platform and configuration to the AMG E63 S instead. But AMG has clearly worked its magic on every important part of the new 4-Door, and it shows when you're driving it in anger. 

We spent our track time exclusively behind the wheel of the GT 63 S 4MATIC+, and from the moment we rumbled out of pit lane, it became very clear very quickly that some dark magic had been weaved into it during the engineering process. 

AMG has clearly worked its magic on every important part of the new 4-Door.

A big part of its joy is that whopping engine, with the big AMG surfing a huge wave of torque, with 900Nm more than enough to compensate for its ample weight on straights, but also enough to make up for ham-fisted gear changes, with the sheer power on offer quickly chasing down any lost time. 

As a result, it never feels overly clinical. A sledgehammer rather than a scalpel, then, bludgeoning its way around through brute force rather than a ballet-dancer's grace. But AMG's engineers deserve credit for disguising plenty of the 4-Door's weight, with the 63 S flowing through fast and medium corners, and only feeling heavy (especially over the front end) over the tighter, slower stuff. 

But that AMG can make a fast and dynamic car should come as little surprise. Where they have struggled in the past - most noticeably in the C 63s of old - is balancing that performance with a comfortable ride on the day-to-day stuff. 

And it's here where the GT 4-Door is most surprising. Not just adequate on the daily commute, but genuinely comfortable, with a ride that - in its softest settings - happily soaks up lumps and bumps, absorbing even badly broken roads without too many harsh rattles in the cabin.

Not just adequate on the daily commute, but genuinely comfortable.

The reason, AMG tells us, is a combination of the air suspension (standard in the 63 models) and revised cushioning in the engine mounts, that allows them to dial in softness when the most comfortable settings are activated.

Downsides? Well, as always, the best things come to those that pay, and so the cheaper, six-cylinder model simply doesn't shift the car's bulk with the ease of the V8s, and it missed out on the best performance and comfort kit. It's something that would grind my gears every time I spotted a 63 rolling past me.

Short answer? It's got the lot. Everything Mercedes has (From AEB, active cruise, semi-autonomous driving thanks to its advance lane keeping and more cameras than your average US airport), the AMG GT 4-Door has it. 

It's yet to be ANCAP tested, but the new E-Class is a (maximum) five-star car.

It's yet to be ANCAP tested, but for what it's worth (which isn't much, to be fair), the new E-Class - which shares its platform with the GT - is a (maximum) five-star car.

The AMG GT 4-Door will be covered by Mercedes-Benz’s three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, with service intervals pegged at 12months or 25,000km.