Mercedes-Benz C250 CDI AMG: Road Test

The letters AMG hold a special place in the minds of automobile enthusiasts. A mere mention of these three magic characters is enough to give goosebumps to a petrolhead and get his heart racing. This little subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz has, for the better part of 50 years, been making crazy, high-performance versions of the Stuttgart based auto maker’s luxury saloons.

Even someone who does not go about professing his love for all things auto has to just take one look at something like the C63 AMG to know that it is something far more special than your regular C-Class saloon. So how do you explain something like this C250 CDI AMG Performance Edition?

For one thing, you’ll be hard pressed to find anything particularly 'AMG' on the outside of the car. For the most part, it pretty much looks like your regular Avantgarde trim C-Class sedan. There are no bonkers flared wheel arches, no vulgar bulge in the bonnet hiding an enormous bi-turbo V8 engine and certainly no massive carbon-ceramic brakes with bright callipers peering out from behind the wheels.

Secondly, unlike its high performance counterpart, there isn’t a single AMG badge to be found anywhere on the body. In fact, the CDI moniker on the car’s bum, indicating that it sports Merc’s 2.1-litre diesel mill, might have you even more confused. But it takes a moment or two and a closer observation to start seeing all the differences that make this car just a little more special than usual.

The first thing that you’ll probably notice is the blacked out roof, which on this white car that we have, looks absolutely brilliant – elegant, yet somehow a little more aggressive. Then there’s the front air dam which is a little bigger than usual, with its inverted grille – a typical AMG touch.

The car is also equipped with a larger and sportier rear bumper as well as racy side skirts. And though the wheels may be 17 inches in diameter (the same as your regular Avantgarde), the five-spoke design is definitely sporty and you can finally see the AMG lettering on them. Overall the visual impression is rather distinct. The car has enough unique, sporty bits on it, but at the same time, none of the loutishness of the C63 AMG, making it perfectly at home in an office car park.

Get latest updates on
the automobile community

Login Now

On the inside, it’s much the same story, and one has to play ‘spot the differences’ to really figure where this AMG Performance Edition stands apart. But the task here is a little easier, thanks to the AMG embroidered floor mats which automatically direct one’s attention to the super suave brushed stainless steel pedals (with little rubber studs for extra grip).

Even the little parking brake pedal in the far corner of the driver’s footwell gets the same treatment. The steering wheel too has that sporty touch thanks to its flattened bottom, and is clearly pinched from the AMG skunkworks parts bin. And unlike your standard C-Class, this steering wheel also gets the paddle-shifter treatment for that extra bit of sportiness and control when driving briskly. Apart from that, the three-pod instrument binnacle features tapered tube style surrounds while the aluminium-look gear selector comes with a leather gaiter for that extra premiumness one would expect.

Even though this C-Class might be labelled the AMG Performance Edition, there aren’t any changes immediately under the hood. It still maintains the inline-four 2,143cc twin-turbo diesel engine of the C250 CDI with absolutely no changes to its outputs. The motor still makes 204PS of power and a whopping 500Nm of torque, which lets the car accelerate from naught to 100km/h in 8.17 seconds.

But while this might not be the sportiest of engines, its real highlight lies in the response throughout the rev range. Thanks to a twin-turbo arrangement with a smaller, high-pressure turbocharger to boost output at low revs and a larger, low-pressure turbocharger which kicks in as the engine RPM builds up, the power delivery is absolutely linear with almost no sense of any turbo lag. The 7G-TRONIC seven-speed automatic gearbox also plays its part in ensuring smooth power delivery to the rear wheels.

The only real ‘performance’ addition to this C250 CDI is the inclusion of the ‘Sport’ button on the dashboard. Push this magic button and the AMG-tuned sports suspension hunkers the car down and stiffens up as well. At the same time, the gearbox speeds up the gear changes, holds lower gears even when you go off throttle while the engine sharpens up throttle response. So while you don’t get AMG levels of performance to speak of, the ‘Sport’ mode offers enough of a jump in the ‘go-faster’ department to keep you smiling. And that is commendable considering that otherwise, the C250 CDI is a comfortable, luxurious sedan that rides really well and is hassle-free to drive in any sort of situation.

It even packs Merc’s BlueEfficiency technologies, which include a start-stop system, to improve the car’s fuel mileage, which at an overall figure of 11kmpl (city + highway combined) is not bad at all. If we had to nitpick, and picking nits is something most of us auto journos pride ourselves at, then the only downside to this car is the lack of ground clearance thanks to those AMG side skirts, which tend to scrape over large speed-breakers.

At the end of the day, what really clinches the argument in favour of this AMG Performance Edition C-Class is the price. While the standard C250 CDI Avantgarde model checks in at Rs 34.76 lakh (ex-showroom Pune), the AMG Edition, with all its visual upgrades and the sports suspension packs is only about Rs 72,000 more. And when you consider that earlier you would have had to shell out a couple of lakh rupees if you wanted to get all the individual additions to your C-Class, it immediately seems like great value-for-money.

In fact, even some of the options you get today like the rear seat entertainment package costs nearly twice as much this AMG Edition upgrade. So if you are in the market for a compact luxury sedan, which lets you have a bit of fun when you are in the mood for some spirited driving, then the Mercedes- Benz C250 CDI AMG Performance Edition is an absolute no-brainer.