Test-Driving The 2025 Mercedes-AMG GT 63

Place the pilot and his navigator in a comfortable long-distance seating position, then build the cockpit and vehicle architecture around them. An upright windscreen, teardrop roofline, a stubby hood with fendercrests that help the driver place the front end in corners, primary and secondary controls all easily worked without taking eyes from the road, and that subconscious connection between man and machine, a sensibility that the car is truly an extension of the driver’s mind and body.

Mercedes-AMG has delivered a 21st Century interpretation of this European Gran Turismo automotive art form that reaches at least to the late 1930s, and that was refined to perfection between the late ‘40s and early ‘70s.

THE TEST CAR

Mercedes-AMG offered two flavors of their GT 63, and I opted for the slightly more luxurious everyday driver, with +2 jump seats and front seats capable of heating, cooling and massaging—call it the Gran Turismo for a man and a woman.

Nearly all controls, screens, menus and graphics are from the depthless Mercedes parts bin, with touchpoints, logic and functionality little different from those of a Maybach EQS electric limo, except GT 63 is a low-slung weapon of speed, not an SUV luxe pod. Familiar, with different intent.

577 Horsepower Twin-Turbo V8

Positioned very near to front-mid-ships is AMG’s 4-liter twin-turbo V8, assembled by a single man at a series of workstations, the builder carefully choosing each part for ideal fit, resulting in the equivalent of a German custom hot rod engine—it gets no better than this.

Producing 577 horsepower and a walloping 590 lb. ft. of torque available in a broad rev range, this highly evolved V8 delivers enough punch to satisfy both the skilled old hand and those recently arriving in this blessed land of big horsepower.

In current German V8 fashion, turbos sit in the Vee up top, sort of like a Man Bun. The packaging benefit is overall engine dimensions of a tidy cube, requiring no compromise from AMG engineers in the architecture of the alloy body or front suspension mounting points. The resulting car is like the engine, a tidy package.

GT 63’s variant of the Mercedes 9-speed has AMG scripting for quick, smooth paddleshifting, including automated, precise throttle blips on downshifts. Thanks to this finely scripted semi-auto gearbox, with limited seat time a neophyte can effortlessly shift as skillfully as any of the greatest sports car racing heroes of the ancient past.

If paddleshifting is too burdensome while navigating traffic on crowded urban highways, select the COMFORT calibration and be a little lazy, the black boxes ably managing shifts. With so much torque available anywhere between 2500 and 5000 rpm, this car is quick even when loafing along.

In COMFORT the suspension remains taut, but just barely cushy enough to manage the wretched pavement of Downtown LA’s tributary highways, saving both kidneys and the car’s expensive tires from bruising and rupture.

To further aid the everyday element of GT 63, check the option box for the front-end lift, and not even my own driveway will scuff GT 63’s chin. Consider it a mandatory option.

The windshield is relatively upright as it should be in a proper GT car. One of the main advantages of this is lack of reflection from the dash top, which is a common problem with some Italian Gas that emphasize style over function. The only reflection is at the very base of the windshield where it impacts the view of the road ahead.

COMFORT, SPORT, OR SPORT+

On a lonely mountain road, SPORT or even SPORT+ work best for all settings, and suddenly you’re riding the tiger, a truly vicious animal. Honestly, using anything like all this car’s potential on the road will prove difficult, and a danger to one’s license.

Hard to imagine that the range-topping AMG GT 63 S E with hybrid powertrain combining this V8 with an electric motor out back offers considerably more performance. But like all acceleration junkies, I always want ruthless power and thrust up to 100 mph…and perhaps a little beyond.

No matter what spec-chart flunkies might say about a car that merely hits 60 mph in 3.1 seconds, GT 63 proved as ferocious and exhilarating as any front-engine GT car available, whether German, Italian or English.

Considering my addiction to acceleration, to violent forward thrust, it’s funny to think that driving GT 63 stokes hunger to sample the AMG GT 43 with its highly sophisticated turbo 4-cylinder, a less powerful car that will also be much easier to stretch out and fully exploit. And of course, Mercedes-AMG’s GT 63 S E Hybrid, which with a wink and a nod might be considered a 21st Century hybrid hypercar cousin of the Uhlenhaut coupe of the 1950s.

OPERATIC V8

Incredible V8 rat-a-tat-tat sound is especially pronounced at lower revs, growing into a forceful, almost violent tenor yowl at higher revs. It’s burbly at lower revs. More strident and affirmative in SPORT and SPORT+ settings. Sings excellent German opera at higher revs. For older guys like me, the engine’s power delivery is readily understandable. Even with all that fat low-rev turbo torque, it still delivers power in a familiar linear fashion. Horsepower rises in an understandable manner. The main difference is that in the old days, you wouldn’t have this incredible combination of enormous low-rev torque and horsepower up top. The hand-off from torque to horsepower between 5000 and 5500 rpm is fantastic. you’re never lacking for thumping good power.

A COMPLETE ALL-ROUND ATHLETE

And GT 63 is a total car, not just an acceleration sled or a tool for top-speed braggarts. GT 63 is an all-round athlete. Any car that hits 60 in less than three and a half seconds is a lot of car, and every two- or three-tenth second increment constitutes another universe. To brush up against 3-flat is enough to make most passengers squeal, whimper or cry. Most civilians freak when taken on such an acceleration run.

AMG’s SL 63 remains my most beloved car of the current generation, a gentleman’s sport-tourer that allows for the very best en plein air moonlight drives combined with an elegant presence. The Maybach SL 680 variant is another gorgeous piece of equipment. GT 63 is SL 63’s more muscular, more sharply focused brother, sharing many of the same components. Both are handsome classical sculpture, avoiding the teenage fever dream video game designs of most mid-engine supercars and hypercars. Both AMG SL and GT are cars for grown men.

After years of Mercedes-AMG triumph in Formula One, the full integration of formerly independent AMG tuning house as the performance division of Mercedes-Benz, production of the AMG One hypercar that is truly a Formula One car for the road, and pick-a-part access to the full array of proven Mercedes subsystems, Mercedes-AMG is now a full-fledged builder of high-performance cars equal to those other two great sports and GT companies, the one down the street in Stuttgart and that other one located south of the Alps. And Mercedes’ unrivaled history of performance cars and motorsports success has accrued to the AMG division. AMG only needs time to build and offer more unique production vehicles to convince any doubters. In engineering capability, Mercedes-AMG is already equal to or far better than its German and Italian comparators.