Mercedes CLS63 AMG Shooting Brake: PH Fleet

Enough diesels already; Harris's new long-termer has a proper gas guzzling V8

As I said when we introduced the world’s smelliest Audi S4 back in March, piling every last PH and DRIVE mile into one car is becoming a problem. The solution is a two-pronged approach. One which now offers just under 1,000hp.

Leather-lined interior was a big attraction

It is the second car that contributes the majority of this suitably excessive power figure – I spent the majority of 2012 driving diesels for the good of my wallet and to try a different way of living, but a man needs regular petrol holidays. So the second car is a MercedesCLS63 AMG Shooting Brake, and appears to have been designed specifically for the role in which it now finds itself: a very fast, very large, very beautiful camera/family car.

In fact the family man (of means) really has never had it so good. Depending on where you live, there’s a chance you might need a four-wheel-drive super-estate, but apart from that it’s hard to see what more someone could want from a car of this type. It’s like the perfect friend - calming and reassuring when you need it to be; utterly outrageous when the situation allows such behaviour. In the year 2013 I suppose I shouldn’t be impressed that a car can carry five people and their luggage so fast and so comfortably, but I still think this is the one of the most difficult tricks to master, as proved by how many brands can accomplish the fast bit, but almost entirely at the expense of the comfort part.

Interior feels good, though it'd better for the price

Do you really need 557hp in your daily runaround? Of course you do. How are you supposed to identify and obliterate 911s in a 350 CDI? It simply isn’t possible. Therefore it needs to be a 63. Well, it should be called a 55 these days on account of the bi-turbo 5.5 litre motor. And the old normally aspirated V8 wasn’t a 6.3 anyway, it was a 6.2.

The CLS is a long, wide, heavy car. Every time I open the boot I marvel at how much space there is, but then so there should be in something five metres long, with a rear overhang the size of Cornwall. The 1,955kg kerb weight is pretty offensive, but then the last RS6 wagon weighed 2.2 tonnes, so I suppose relative to the competition it’s not so bad.

There seem to be endless power and torque variations for the M157 motor; this one offers 557hp and 590lb ft of torque. Mercedes claims 0-62mph in 4.3sec, and I can verify that the 155mph speed limiter is annoyingly accurate. I first drove the car on winter tyres and it was slightly alarming: those putty-like tread blocks would squirm around under the smallest throttle openings and the traction control would frequently intervene. In my experience, two-wheel-drive cars with over 450lb ft just don’t work on winters, especially turbocharged ones. You’re better off parking it.

Exhaust noise never gets old

On a fresh set of P-Zeros the Brake is transformed. The steering is a touch lifeless, but this is a two-tonne wagon, not an Elise, so that’s not a problem for me. The sheer number of seat, wheel and bolster positions means that the memory function for the electric front seats is absolutely crucial – I doubt you could find the same setting twice otherwise.

The seats themselves are covered in the highest quality leather I have seen outside of a Bentley – it’s an optional extra (£2,695) and it does include a Dinamica roof lining, which to you and me looks and feels like suede. It makes for an indulgent cabin space – the lower roof line and number of surfaces which are draped in dead cow ensure that if feels quite a bit more special than an E-Class. The pretty IWC clock helps too.

Fast, pretty, capacious: the Brake does it all

But for £83,030 basic, and at £97,419 with all the extras added, it needs to feel flipping expensive. This was a general press car before it came to me, so it’s understandable that many boxes have been ticked for hacks to experience different toys.

These extras straddle the full panoply of the interesting, the bizarre, and the piss-takingly rude. If you spend eighty-three grand on a stupidly fast estate car, being asked to contribute a further £125 for a safety net to stop stuff being reduced to rubble in the luggage area is some kind of a joke. As is charging £2,570 for a mechanical locking differential. However, I love not having to do anything with the key enough to say that the £930 Keyless Go system is worth the cash. That will probably land me in trouble.

But this is a very expensive car that makes its driver feel very good about himself. It cuts a shape quite unlike any other fast German and the performance is totally addictive. In the past few weeks I’ve stepped from several fast sports cars into this, my everyday car, and grinned at the fact that, even full of clobber, it feels just as fast.

The ideal 911-baiting family wagon

I never touch the adjustable damper button; it always remains in the softest setting, which gives a decent ride at speed, but is a fair bit firmer than non-AMG equivalent Merc. The MCT seven-speed ’box is beginning to feel its age now, but left in auto mode I hardly notice it there, unless I’ve just hopped from the S4 and its DSG, which just shifts much more quickly.

But the biggest surprise so far is the fuel consumption. We averaged 17mpg in the normally aspirated E63wagon we ran a while back, and I never saw it climb above 20mpg even at a sensible cruise. This car will see 24-25mpg on a run thanks to its stop-start trickery (you get that great whump of exhaust every time it re-boots, too, which is nice) and the turbo motor’s extra efficiency. Given what the car can do, I think that’s very reasonable. The tampered-with S4 doesn’t do much better.

FACT SHEET
Car: 2013 Mercedes CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake
Run by: Chris Harris
On fleet since: April 2013
Mileage: 4,800
List price new: £97,419 (base price £83,030 plus £2570 for locking differential, £990 for electric glass sunroof, £304 for privacy glass, £410 for reversing camera, £685 for comfort ventilated seats, £255 for Easy-Pack load securing kit, £930 Keyless Go, £2696 Luxury package, £125 Safety net, £2295 Driving assistance package, £295 Tyre pressure monitoring, £650 Harmon Kardon, £290 Telephone pre-wiring, £1895 Forged alloys)
Last month at a glance: Monkey opts for another petrol V8 - hang the fuel consumption!

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DannyScene

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