Mercedes C63 AMG sink your teeth into this

Designed and built exclusively by AMG, the Jaffa C 63 concept is a one-off with distinctive bright orange paint offset by black painted wheels, badges, grille, exhaust tips etc. Basically everything that’s not orange or glass is black. Even the custom black interior features orange highlights and orange stitching.

But the real story is under the skin. The new Performance Package Plus is designed to appeal to the power-hungry sports driver. It increases power output by 22kW to a sky-high 358kW, delivering near-DTM race car performance potential (the DTM cars produce 377kW).

Unlike the exclusive exterior treatment – which is bespoke – the Per-formance Package Plus is available for production C Class AMG vehicles  and includes a high-performance braking system with composite tech-nology on the front axle, a carbon fibre spoiler lip and an AMG perform-ance steering wheel clad in Nappa leather/Alcantara.

Performance? Immense. This C63 AMG accelerates from 0-100km/h in 4.4 seconds and 0-200km/h in just 13.9 seconds. (The standard C63 AMG does it in 4.5 seconds and 15.2 seconds respectively). Top speed is electronically limited to 250km/h.

The boost in power arrives thanks to the AMG 6.3-litre V8 modified en-gine: forged pistons from the new SLS AMG supercar together with new conrods and a lightweight crankshaft translate into a weight saving of three kilograms. Reduced ?inertia boosts the responsiveness of the V8 engine. There is also a variable intake manifold painted titanium grey.

The Performance Package Plus matches composite brake discs on the front axle with red-painted and AMG-logo brake calipers all round. The brake discs are connected to an aluminium bowl to avoid temperature peaks.  Even the connection between the disc and bowl is new: instead of the usual screw connection, the aluminium bowl is now connected to the brake disc via cast-in arms. The advantage is more consistent tempera-ture distribution on the brake disc.

The C63 AMG is one of AMG’s most popular vehicles. In 2008, 8100 C 3s were sold worldwide. And they’re put to a range of private as well as official uses – for example a C63 AMG estate is used as the official F1 medical intervention car, and a C63 AMG sedan is the official safety car in the DTM German Touring Car Masters series.