Tested: 2024 Mercedes-AMG GT63 Coupe Is a Ship of Theseus

From the September/October issue of Car and Driver.

The Mercedes-AMG GT isn’t on its own branch of the family tree anymore. Moving away from its beginnings as a stand-alone sports car, the second-generation GT now shares most of its underpinnings with the SL-class convertible. It’s grown in nearly every dimension, and while it’s still a blast, it delivers a different experience.

The old GT practically shrink-wrapped itself around the driver, but this German has been hitting the bierwurst between generations. The second-gen GT is 6.7 inches longer, 1.8 inches wider, and 2.6 inches taller than its forebear. It’s also 546 pounds heavier than the previous generation’s base model, weighing in at 4245 pounds.

A significant side benefit to this embiggening, though, is space. The interior feels far less compact, and there’s now enough cabin area for an optional Porsche 911–style rear seat that won’t accommodate any headed horsemen. It makes a pretty good parcel shelf, though. The GT’s cargo hold grows from 10 to 11 cubic feet, further expanding to 24 cubes with the optional no-cost folding rear seat.

Some of the weight gain also comes from the GT’s most polarizing update for 2024: all-wheel drive. Though never offered in the first-gen GT, it’s now standard, as is rear-axle steering. The twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 living under the hood makes the same 577 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque as in the SL63 convertible, and it uses the same nine-speed automatic transmission as well.

Unsurprisingly, adding all-wheel-drive traction makes the new GT quite the performer. We recorded a 2.7-second sprint to 60 mph, 0.3 second quicker than the 60-pound-heavier SL63. The century mark arrives in 6.8 seconds, and the quarter-mile in 10.9 seconds at 125 mph. While the GT63’s newfound quickness comes from an all-wheel-drive launch, the additional mass is on full display when accelerating from 5 to 60 mph, a move that requires 3.9 seconds. Once you get used to the accelerator, which does its best impression of a spring-loaded brick where the spring is also made of brick, power delivery is tricky but possible to dole out in increments. There’s a barely tamed attitude here—get a smidge too aggressive with the pedal, and you’ll smack the headrest as the V-8 unleashes itself.

The steering is also on the heavy side, and the suspension rides a fine line between firm and harsh in every mode, but the only true dynamic miss we found is the nine-speed automatic. Shifts can be both harsh in the most aggressive setting and more sluggish than we expect from a sports car.

The GT63 is agile when the going gets lateral. We averaged 1.06 g’s on the skidpad, a 0.02-g improvement over the SL63 and identical to the final first-gen GT we tested. That doesn’t mean it feels like the old model, though. The old GT had a rear-weight bias, but now the front-to-rear weight balance is flipped, with 54 percent of the mass up front. And feeling the front end pull when leaving a corner is a new experience.

The new AMG GT lacks the raucous rear-drive sports-car nature of the old one, but with newfound cabin space and some welcome tech upgrades, the second-generation car is far more livable as a daily driver than its predecessor. Does it feel like an SL with a roof? Yes. But that doesn’t make it less of an AMG GT; it’s just a different AMG GT.

Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com