It seems that whenever a marque launches a flagship model these days, it’s quickly followed up by a variant designed to draw people into showrooms with a cheaper asking price. Something less potent, less feature-rich, less headline-grabbing. This is the new Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4-Door Coupe, and although it’s just as visually questionable as its quicker brother, it’s going to take longer to leave your line of sight.
That’s because while the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 4-Door Coupe dishes out 1,153 horsepower and the AMG GT 55 4-Door Coupe serves up 805 horsepower, the latest base model uses dual motors to crank out a peak of 536 horsepower. That’s less than half the output of the top trim, and such a reduction does have a meaningful effect on performance. Mercedes-AMG claims zero-to-62 mph in 3.5 seconds with one foot of rollout deducted, or zero-to-62 mph in 3.9 seconds if you aren’t on a drag strip, testing for a magazine, or measuring from the taint. Quick, sure, but not earth-shatteringly so. A Hyundai Ioniq 5 N should be quicker, and a modestly-spec’d Porsche Taycan 4S should be neck-and-neck with the Benz.
This is a bit underwhelming, because unlike the Hyundai and the Porsche, Mercedes-AMG’s flagship electric car is the very definition of gopping, having stolen the crown from some sort of deep-sea fish. The nose is still a jumbled clash of surfaces, but the rear end treatment has only grown more offensive over time. Who signed off on mounting a handful of tiny round taillights and a strip of LEDs from a frat house on a dinner table-sized mass of cheap, shiny black plastic? It’s simply awful. Truly dreadful. In such poor taste that it almost disguises how Mercedes-AMG cheaped out and didn’t put a black filler panel between the pano roof and the rear window to blend the greenhouse properly.
If you’re able to look past the way the Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4-Door Coupe looks and its slightly anticlimactic power output, it does put out some figures that are impressive. Mercedes-AMG claims it will do 502 miles on a single charge during WLTP testing conditions. Or maybe as few as 423 miles, likely depending on wheel and tire package. Either way, once range is exhausted, you’ll be able to DC fast charge the AMG GT 53 4-Door Coupe at up to 600 kW, assuming you’re lucky enough to find an exceptionally rare 600 kW fast charger.
While you’re DC fast charging, you’ll have a moment to get acquainted with what Mercedes-AMG thinks luxury is now. Spoiler alert: It’s a lot of screens and not many real buttons. The dashboard looks like the demo wall of televisions at a Best Buy, ambient lighting visible to the camera in the daytime seems excessive, and six spokes on the steering wheel? Really? It all seems like it would grow quite tiresome, particularly because it’s just not as visually interesting as, say, BMW’s new parallelogram-shaped iDrive system or Lincoln’s slim pillar-to-pillar screen arrangement. Oh dear.
Finally, we get to the really big problem: If you want a quick electric Mercedes-Benz, you’d be foolish to buy the AMG GT 53 4-Door Coupe on paper. The new electric Mercedes-AMG CLA 45 makes 134 more horsepower, gets to 62 MPH nearly a second quicker, still has more than 416 miles of WLTP range, can still DC fast charge at an entirely reasonable 330 kW, and is going to cost less. A lot less. Likely tens of thousands of Euros less, or tens of thousands of dollars assuming both models make it to America. Like the AMG GT EV, the CLA 45 gets simulated gear changes and engine sounds, active aerodynamic elements, silicon carbide inverters, and an 800-volt architecture, except the CLA is less visually offensive. I’ll admit, the front end still isn’t great, but it has a normal rump, and that’s something you can’t say about the AMG GT 4-Door.
So, the Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4-Door Coupe isn’t ideal for speed junkies, nor is it likely to appeal to traditionalists. It also doesn’t look fantastic, so its usefulness for posing in posh areas is limited at best. While maximum WLTP range and peak DC fast charging figures are impressive, it’s going to be a tough sell when a quicker, cheaper CLA 45 is sitting across the showroom. Anyway, expect the lease deals to be superb after a year or two on sale.
Top graphic image: Mercedes-AMG
When was 536HP not enough?
As they sead in South Park:
He sat on a gold hummer with Gucci accessories which only a Persian would think was cool.
(With my respect to all Iranian people who have nothing to do with the war.)
“A Mercedes Executive Reportedly Said The Electric GT ‘Shouldn’t Exist’ but it was “too late to stop it.”
I don’t disagree – not because it’s an EV, but because it looks like a stupid-angry fish with a dashboard right out of Times Square.
That is a great example of the fallacy of sunk costs.
No matter how far along you are with a stupid idea, you should stop anyway.
I don’t blame you for not noticing, but the second picture is of a CLA, not an AMG GT.
Pretty big indictment on Mercedes that the cheapest model in the range is so interchangeable…
As it has four doors it can not, by definition, be a coupe.
A coupe is not, and never has been, defined by the number of doors, any more than a sedan is. A coupe is a car with a lower roofline and a smaller back seat. There are four door coupes, and there are two door sedans.