Background
Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher had been earning a living at the Mercedes Benz Development Department working on the 300SE racing engine when the company decided to discontinue all factory motorsport activities in 1967. Not happy to contemplate a mundane, production car orientated future, the two colleagues set up a workshop in Aufrecht’s garage in Grossaspach. AMG was born, with the “A” from Aufrecht, the “M” from Melcher and the “G” from Grossaspach.
By 1990 a “Cooperation Agreement” between the Mercedes and AMG was finalised allowing AMG products to be sold and maintained via the huge Mercedes Benz network as well as promising collaboration on some road car projects. By 1993 the C36 AMG was unveiled, based on the W202, as the first road car product of the cooperation agreement. Such was the potential that Mercedes Benz could see in the AMG relationship that the former bought the latter in its entirety in 1998. This momentous event almost coincided with another, the release of a 4.3L V8 C43 AMG making it the firm’s first V8 propelled C-Class.
Fast forward ten years and AMG were upping the ante yet again with the release of their interpretation of the new W204 C-Class, the third model in the popular compact executive series. The C63 AMG was reported to be the most “AMG’d” road car to that point with virtually every mechanical system given the AMG treatment. The car was fitted with the mighty M156 V8 engine. Although displacing 6,208cc Mercedes adopted the “6.3” nomenclature in tribute to the revered 6.3L M100 engine, its first production V8.
Mercedes Benz chose the 2011 mid-life facelift of the W204 range to usher in a host of improvements together with an all-new C-Class coupe model. For the first time this was a bespoke C-Class chassis rather than just being a chopped down version of something else. Needless to say, a C63 AMG version sat at the top of the C-Class Coupe food-chain.







