A45 AMG vs C36 AMG

It's 20 years since the first official AMG launched - we put it head to head with the newest

What were you doing in 1993? Your humble correspondent was on L plates crunching gears in his mother's Metro. Meanwhile a small band of academic dreamers were seeing their vision of a 'world wide web' begin to blossom with the invention of the Mosaic graphical browser, Spielberg made a film about dinosaurs and Ice Cube had a good day and decided he didn't need to use his AK. Which was perhaps premature because it was also the year Whitney Houston bellowed out I Will Always Love You. Meanwhile the first offspring of Mercedes-Benz and AMG's marriage emerged into the spotlight at the Frankfurt motor show.

20 years ago this was the future of AMG

Scene set, you'll be glad to hear we'll be talking mainly about the latter.

You'll be aware by now that we had an A45 AMG in recently and rather liked it. So we thought we'd put it together with the car that really started the modern AMG age. Unveiled in the autumn of 1993, the C36 was the first product jointly developed following a 'cooperation contract' initiated in 1990 that saw AMG products offered for the first time through the Mercedes dealer network. Expansion with a third plant and the registration of AMG as a trademark came three years later, the firm fully amalgamated into DaimlerChrysler in 1999 when co-founder Hans Werner Aufrecht sold a controlling stake to create Mercedes-AMG GmbH.

Happy birthday to you
So the 20th birthday of the first official AMG deserves celebration, hence a call to the forums for a suitable C36 answered by obliging PHer and AMG fan Michael Lynch.

Things have moved on somewhat since then

"20 years? It feels more like 50," growled new AMG boss Tobias Moers when we met him at the Frankfurt motor show last month. He started at AMG in 1994, the year after the C36 launched. And you can see his point. Against the A45's bristling, high-tech armoury of four-wheel drive, 180hp per litre turbocharged power and seven-speed twin-clutch gearbox the C36 does appear of a different age.

Michael's is an early car, meaning a decidedly agricultural four-speed auto sending the power from the 280hp 3.6-litre straight-six to the rear wheels without any electronic intervention whatsoever. It's not sophisticated but by the standards of the day it was rapid, Autocar testing it in 1994 against the E36 325i-based Alpina B3 Switchtronic. The Alpina's five-speed gearbox, "sensational handling balance" and all-round sweetness won the testers' hearts but it was conceded that "the C36 commands a small but significant performance advantage across the performance range." In the end they concluded the AMG was a pump-action shotgun to the Alpina's Purdey.

Stat comparisons intriguing at many levels

Examples of both cars can be found today in the PH classifieds, the sole Alpina up for £3,500 and a late model five-speed auto C36 with comparable 175K on the clock at £3,990.

Second best?
The C36 will always be in the shadow of the C43 that followed it in the facelifted version of the same W202 C-Class body in 1997. That the V8's 306hp bettered the C36 by a relatively modest 26hp and torque climbed from 284lb ft to 302lb ft underlines quite how strong that big six really was, the '43 just a couple of tenths quicker to 62mph at 6.7 seconds. Meanwhile the A45 delivers a frankly extraordinary 360hp from just two litres and four cylinders, scrabbling to a launch controlled 62 in just 4.5 seconds. Like all modern day AMGs it gets bespoke chassis hardware and unique features like a linear rate steering rack to put additional ground over its more humdrum stablemates, the engineering muscle and sense of identity now in a different league from when the C36 launched. "There was no differentiation with the styling package over the Sport model with the C36, nothing," recalls Moers.

A45 has no trouble reining in the C36

In character it couldn't be more different from the manic, vein-popping hooliganism of the A45 too. But it's not slow. The six is gruff and muscular compared with the sweeter BMW equivalents of the time and there's a shudder as you engage Drive that underlines the lack of drivetrain frills. You take up a bit of slack in the throttle and initially the engine feels lethargic and less than enthusiastic. A sense underlined by the relaxed response from the big Merc wheel that sits in your lap and feels defiantly unsporty - the smaller, chunkier one fitted to later cars and C43 has a lot more heft to it.

Snap, crackle, pop
By now in the A45 you'd have snap, crackle and popped your way through about five gears. On the choppy North York Moors roads the A45 is frenetic, thrilling and massively, massively fast, C36 owner Michael wasting no time in finding out how far AMG has come in two decades. Meanwhile his car has barely yawned, scratched its belly and got out of bed.

Firecracker A45 much more overt in performance

Revs build and with it surprising speed, gearshifts coming at leisurely intervals compared with the rapid-fire dual-clutch in the A-Class. Peak torque doesn't arrive until 4,000rpm, maximum horsepower just shy of 6,000rpm. This is an old-school tuned engine, the like of which AMG made its name with. It remains gruff and businesslike too, just a hint of six-cylinder sweetness penetrating higher in the rev range.

And where you feel the A45's performance in the explosive acceleration phase you don't really notice how fast you're going in the C36 until you find cause to back off and momentum makes its presence felt. It takes a little longer to get there but once on the A45's tail the old stager still has good pace. In the A45 you're all urgent, violent stabs of brake and throttle, always pushing and constantly amazed at its relentless enthusiasm. You plan a lot further ahead in the C36, second-guessing the auto with deliberate manual overrides, settling it into the corner, making sure everything is just-so and then riding it out quite probably 20 per cent faster than you thought you might but with no fuss or drama whatsoever.

Two decades, two intriguing cars

Roll with it
It's totally different but, once you get into a groove, much more invigorating than those first impressions would have suggested it would be. The C43 will always win hearts and minds with its more charismatic V8 and performance advantage. But C36 advocates like Michael counter that the earlier car has a more raw nature and is closer to the old-school foundations AMG is built on.

It's certainly an odd mix of occasionally fuddy- duddy Benz and properly muscular performance. You can see why Autocar was more easily won over by the Alpina's subtly and balance, while still awed by the C36's power. Let's not forget just how expensive the C36 was compared with rivals too - at the time of the car's unveiling the four-door E36 M3 had just been announced at £32,450 (same as the two-door) while the B3 would have cost you around £36,000. From the outset the C36 weighed in at a hefty £38,250, this rising to £42,050 with the introduction of the facelifted five-speeder.

The comparison is skewed somewhat but the amount of technology packed into the A45's base price of £37,845 makes you realise how much more we expect of our cars these days. And how far a tuner set up by a couple of blokes in a Swabian barn has come.

MERCEDES-BENZ A45 AMG
Engine: 1,991cc 4-cyl turbo
Transmission: 7-speed dual clutch auto, four-wheel drive
Power (hp): 360@6,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 332@2,250-5,000rpm
0-62mph: 4.6 seconds
Top speed: 155mph (limited)
Weight: 1,555kg
MPG: 40.9 (NEDC combined)
CO2: 161g/km
Price: £37,845

MERCEDES-BENZ C36 AMG
Engine: 3,606cc 6-cyl
Transmission: 4-speed auto, rear-wheel drive (5-speed 1996-on)
Power (hp): 280@5,750rpm
Torque (lb ft): 284@4,000-4,750rpm
0-62mph: 6.7 seconds
Top speed: 155mph (limited)
Weight: 1,560kg
MPG: 27.9 (at 120km/h)
CO2: N/A
Price: £38,250 (new), c. £3,000-£5,000 (used)

Thanks to C36 owner Michael Lynch.

Photos: PrimeExposures

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