Mercedes-AMG C 43 Estate

Biturbo V6 promises blend of pace and efficiency. Does it deliver?

- Richard Ingram

FOR a long time, Mercedes’ flagship AMG cars topped the model range with screaming eight and 12-cylinder engines, and laughed in the face of fuel economy and emissions concerns.

The focus, until now, has been on brute force and outright driving dynamics. But in this day and age, surely all this can go hand-in-hand with manageable tax bills and low running costs? Mercedes thinks it has found a way for buyers to have their cake and eat it with the new AMG C 43.

We drove the C 43 Coupé on European roads earlier this year (Issue 1,429), but this is our first chance to try the more practical Estate on British tarmac. It sits in between the high-spec diesels and the full-fat AMG 63 versions, offering a halfway house in terms of performance and efficiency.

But don’t think for a second that this AMG 43 is short on straight-line pace. The Estate model is just as fast as the Coupé from 0-62mph (4.7 seconds) and will still hit an electronically limited 155mph flat out. That means it’s two-tenths faster than the new Audi S4 in the benchmark sprint, and only half a second behind the C 63.