AMG12

Did you have snows on the e55? I'm getting ready to put snows on the E63 hoping its somewhat drivable in snowy conditions.

pman

I believe you'll have a choice between 4matic and, rwd.

otakki

That shouldn't be the case if you have good snow tires. I figure for the less than half a dozen times I couldn't get into the garage is no reason to be stuck with AWD year round.

If you are open to non-car, ie SUV, other options would be BMW's M SUV and AMG's SUV offerings. Ferrari FF is also a worthy contender.

From what I have heard, there is no choice--only 4matic.

joshb63

+1

kip

I live in Finland and our other car is a suv, so only cars for dd. FF costs 800.000 dollars, so not an option. If you have real winters like we do, you will get stuck with 700nm of torque. If you get momentum, its ok, but if you lose that, the only way is down. I had the oem winter tires, if I remember correctly Dunlops m+s, ok no studs. I lived in the city before and was a huge rwd fan, no problems whatsoever, then we moved to the cou tryside withsomething like category 3 plowing=melting is more probable. Otherwise I really liked the E55. The Porsche is too flashy, it causes too much envy and problems related to it, including routine checkups by police. With the E AMG you can even drive the buss lane and no one noticed you among 10 other e class taxis. So I am really looking forward to this awd change, but I hope it is an option. I think they would be crazy to drop rwd alltogether.

For a few months the only way to get home was in reverse, as the winter I sold my car it snowed 10cm like every day. My neighbors enjoyed that, but not me.

otakki

I see. The situation there is obviously different. I bet the amount of snow you guys get over there in the Scandinavian will make our winter feels like a walk in the park. If I were to live there in the countryside, I would be so tempted to get a snowmobile. Some beautiful places near that part of the world.

IMO, the best AWD systems for this type of cars is Nissan's ATTESA-ETS Pro system. It's developed mainly for paved road and it allows the car to be mostly RWD most of the time until traction is truly needed. thus it's RWD dynamics most of the time. That's why GTR is one of the few AWD cars that can still drift. Hopefully AMG will have the 4matic for AMG engineered to be like that. Better yet, I would totally love it if they would just outfitted AMG's with ATTESA-ETS Pro.

Speaking of that, I thought there is already an alliance between Diamler-Benz, Renault, and Nissan. It's time for them to share some of each other's goodies.

kip

This is one field in which I think Porsche is one of the best in the world. Driving the Panamera turbo and even more so the 997TT, you can go with big wheels almost in any kind of weather, still when its dry it feels like a rwd car.

kamarinj

Pretty awesome. Just spotted 2 new E63's camouflaged with the Michigan plates headed to a place around my house where they film Top Gear. They sounded pretty awesome as well.

AMG12

Interesting about the sound. I love my car on first cold start of day but after that little too quiet. Would be great to have sport exhaust switch as part of the Power Pak.

otakki

Where is that?

MACHC5

Maybe someone is worried about a new TESLA Model S eating the typical AMG E Class or BMW M5 lunch's next year...

MachC5

kamarinj

In Orange County, CA

plivac

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...le_first_look/

I guess its official

Chocofishez

575hp, 0-60 in 3.5s. 33.3% / 66.6% permanent front to rear torque split. No DCT, but that won't stop me from buying.

Can sort of see the new headlights, but not all that well.

I'll be keeping my #1 spot on the list though that's for sure!

otakki

Good thing is the rear LSD is possibly standard now. And that test mule having no sunroof of any kind...That's my kind of car.

The front is still too round to fit in with the orginal lines of the car. Also, why fixed 33/67 permanent split?! Why not mostly 0/100 that can self adjust up to 50/50 if needed as found on ATTESA-ETS PRO? Most driving can be done with 0/100 as shown on the GTR. And we all know GTR's handling prowess with its ATTESA-ETS PRO despite slight lack of feel. Yes, 0-60 will be fabulous, but we will have to see what it's like for high speed pull.

Oh well, just some rambling from me. Still an awesome car.

kamarinj

Yup, those are the exact ones I saw exiting the freeway by my house and the whole photo gallery was taken at the location I thought they were headed to. Nice!

Malu59RT

It appears the main reason is weight savings. I too would have liked an adjustable split. In my Gallardo, the car is primarily RWD as far as I can tell, but it's easy to overpower the viscous coupling for the front, and still spin the rears.

Capn

This is looking like a promising supercar sedan. Did it say anything about launch control being a feature?

ayu910

33.3%/66.6% permanent? Oh no…that means it is a Front engine, “FWD based” AWD car. High speed 60+mph acceleration will suffer for sure, current RWD E63 with PP should able to walk and F10 M5 might able to fly by a E63 AWD with ease on freeway. Same result most likely on road course as E63(RWD)/M5 should able to pull hard when exiting corner. IMO, if MB can’t offer GT-R or Panamera 4’s type of Front engine RWD based AWD setup then it should be a option for customer to decide.

joshb63

Maybe I'm missing something, but what makes this car a FWD biased car? it has twice the power going to the rear.

thebishman

The recent Car and Driver article with the head of AMG states that the 2014 AWD E63 AMG has even more power and is faster around the 'Ring. What's not to love here?
Bish

otakki

Agree! That's what I have been saying all along. At high speed, some front end stability is achieved by diverting some power up front, but to make it permanently at 33% is just a waste. It's worthwhile to make the system a RWD based AWD even though it will add more weight. Or make the AWD system an option.

I'm still all for a system that is primarily front:rear of 0:100 that can auto-adjust up to 50:50 despite having additional weight. Besides, having extra weight is advantageous in a collision.

ayu910

The chassis setup is similar to support a FWD vehicle even the engine and transmission is installed in the traditional north/south longitudinal RWD layout. The disadvantages is that the engine is installed too far forward for optimum weight distribution (the driveshafts to the front wheels comes out of the front of the gearbox, meaning that the gearbox has to line up with the center axis of the front wheels, and the engine forward of the front wheels).

I was really hoping E63 4Matic to come with original per 98 setup where the centre differential, also known as the transfer case, contains two clutches. Each hydraulically enabled clutch is controlled separately to allow for three modes of operation: 2WD (mode 0) where 100% of available torque is available to the rear axle while the front axle is disconnected, and two 4WD modes which allow for 35/65 front/rear axle torque split (mode 1) or 50/50 front/rear axle torque split (mode 2). Like Otakki mention, make it permanently at 33% is just a waste on energy/HP not to mention the disadvantage introduced on chassis dynamic.

From Motorsport point of view the FWD based AWD setup is not ideal and everyone realize it….even Audi is working on changing their FWD based AWD platform starting from A8 to RWD in next gen. http://www.autoblog.com/2012/08/29/n...-all-aluminum/ It is just funny, MB is going the other way…

Regardless, MB might not care since they are not targeting Motorsport enhusitace as main audience anyway (yes, even for AMG). IMO, from all around performance aspect E63 RWD should be the top choice unless limited by weather then Panamera 4’s would be a good pick or wait for the new Audi AWD with RWD-based chassis layout.

kip

I dont think this type of awd is an issue, since someone who cares will buy a rwd anyway. The 0/100 type awd car has its problems too. My car tends to be a little tail happy on icy roads and roundabouts, its not nice to slide sideways on offramps when you are not trying to do it. 33/66 split I suspect is more stable. Isnt this more like an Audi, which MB is trying to rival anyway. Although I must say, sometimes, especially in the summer, it is really nice to have an awd car that mostly behaves like a rwd car.

BoBcanada

I really couldn't care less about acceleration beyond 100 miles. Give me a car that is stupid fast until 100 miles. thats where all the fun ends anyway. We don't have autobahns to race Rwd M5's anyhow. I like the idea of traction and 0-60 in low 3s don't really understand why you guys complaining. This is going to be silly fast 4 door family hauler. with a tune its still going to destroy 85% of cars on the ROAD.