Quite stunning, isn't it? The Mercedes-Benz C 63 AMG estate. I'm tempted to say a work of art, a sculpture crafted from one solid piece of granite. Yet it's a piece that you'd be a bit frightened of knocking over and chipping.
That's how I felt about the C 63 estate when the guy in the battered Toyota Tercel ploughed into the back of me. I felt like I'd let something extremely precious be broken. I probably didn't feel as bad as the guy who'd just walloped a $169,900 car who'd completely ignored the idea of insurance. But still.
The C 63 isn't quite a work of art. It's a car and it can be fixed. Up front, it's easy-going: New Zealand has a big uptake of high-performance AMG models, which made up 10 per cent of C-Class sales last year.
For the estate bits at the back that took the blow, they may have to rummage a little harder around the workshop: less than 1 per cent of C-Class sales are estates.
The C 63 is an epic machine by any standards and more than a little old-school: 6.2-litre V8, naturally aspirated, with 336kW/600Nm. But the facelifted C 63 does get a new seven-speed MCT automatic gearbox. It'll do 0-100km/h in 4.5 seconds, which tells you all you need to know.
