1995 Mercedes-Benz C36 AMG Has a Split Personality

From the February 1995 issue of Car and Driver.

We were in the new Mercedes C36 on Autobahn-8, following public-relations man Jürgen Hodel’s S500 from a hotel in Stuttgart to the Frankfurt airport. The morning commuter traffic was heavy and surprisingly like an American freeway in the way drivers hung in the left lane. But occa­sionally the road would clear and Hodel’s S500 would streak ahead.

Trying not to let the big S-class escape from view, I’d floor the pedal and listen to the breathed-on straight-six wind up through its range, changing from a bass growl to a tenor whoop and back as the transmission (an adapted E420 mecha­nism) found new gears to explore. On sev­eral occasions, the pedal flattened the mat long enough for the speedo needle to stroke the 155-mph mark, the point at which the car’s electronics inhibit further adventure. At that speed, the C36 slashes through the air with a suppressed roar, its engine uttering a determined, hard-edged snarl. But the wheel remains unperturbed, almost restful in your hands, and the car tracks like a monorail.

The C36 is the result of a marriage made in Swabian heaven. It’s a Mercedes C280 with some additional development work from veteran Benz-transformers AMG. Considering it’s the folks at AMG who gave us the Hammer and other pumped-up Mercedes monster-cars, their work on the C36 is remarkably subtle­—particularly from an exterior viewpoint. There is a new, deeper front air dam with foglamps and a slatted mouth that emulates the grille, new side skirts, and a new rear apron. All of it is tasteful and fairly restrained. Also added are AMG badges, dual chrome exhaust outlets, and distinctive 17-inch AMG wheels with tires so low in profile they look like rubber bands on cotton reels.

When you examine the pedigree, you see classic thoroughbred inbreeding: parts from various Mercedes models combine to broaden the standard C280’s perfor­mance envelope. For the C36, the AMG guys found another 74 horsepower to add to the C280’s 194-strong stable. First they increased the bore of a stock C280 engine (known internally as the M104) from 89.9 to 91 mm. Next, they slid forged aluminum pis­tons into the bigger sleeves, bumping the compression ratio from 10 to 10.5:1. At the bot­tom end, they installed a specially machined and balanced S350 turbodiesel crankshaft, extending the engine’s stroke from 73.5 to 92.4 mm. That resulted in a displacement of 3.6 liters.

Then they took a stock cylinder head, enlarged the ports for better gas exchange, replaced the exhaust valves with sodium­-filled units for better heat dissipation, installed an AMG intake camshaft with greater lift, and advanced the exhaust-cam timing. An intake manifold from the E320 was bolted on, along with a low-back-pres­sure exhaust system. That left AMG to fig­ure a ton of new software algorithms for the variable valve timing, the variable vol­ume intake system, the ignition timing, the fuel-injection pulse widths, and the elec­tronic transmission.

When finished, AMG had an engine that makes at least 252 pound-feet of torque (90 percent of its peak) between 2800 and 5300 rpm. By twisting the drive­shaft that hard, AMG was courting final­-drive failure, so it installed a heavier-duty differential originally developed for the still-gestating new E-class car. It uses the same 2.87:1 final-drive ratio as the C280, but has wider gear teeth.

With all the go-faster bits in place, some new brake and suspension disciplines were in order. Front discs come from the SL600—big 12.6-inch rotors with four-piston calipers—and the rear brakes are from an E420. Together, they claw the C36 to a stop from 70 mph in 163 feet. The car retains European Sport-spec spring rates but has upgraded anti-roll bars to increase roll stiffness by 35 percent in front and by 49 percent at the rear. Special AMG-tuned gas shock absorbers with degressive damping characteristics were installed to take the edge off bumps—like potholes and expansion joints—that pro­duce high damper-piston speeds.

Despite the extensively modified pow­ertrain and firmer chassis, the C36 feels a lot like an authentic three-pointed-star car . . . albeit one that starts with a healthy bark and then struggles to run evenly for awhile, going rumpity-rump until it warms to a mildly surging idle.

As you get in, you see the telltale AMG doorsills, the initials on the 160-mph speedometer, the gray leather segment on the steering wheel, and “C36” embossed on the gear-selector knob. Apart from these clues, the interior is much as it would be in a C280, because U.S. customers get wood trim rather than the tacky fake car­bon-fiber surfaces European C36s are stuck with. The transmission selector is unchanged, jinking through the wiggly quadrant to find drive. As the car rolls off, it jiggles slightly on its springs, revealing a degree of firmness and roll control not found on the cooking C-class cars. Then, as you press the pedal floorward, the C36 thrusts forward with unmistakable energy, the exhaust growl full of deep staccato impulses from the bigger-bore cylinders.

The acceleration figures are impres­sive, testifying to standstill-to-60 sprints in just 6.0 seconds and a standing quarter-mile time of 14.6 seconds at 97 mph. Top speed is limited to 155 mph, as we observed on the auto­bahn, although the elec­tronic watchdog on our U.S. car was slightly off and it averaged only 152 mph during top-speed tests. But that’s close enough, and more than most U.S. owners are ever likely to see. Anyway, the best thing about the new C36 is its torque. It’s a tide that picks the car up and washes it forward with relentless intensity.

What more could you ask for? Not much, but we must confess that some of us found the car curiously schizophrenic. During relaxed motoring, you have the thick, syrupy veneer of Benz luxury, with its super-damped, slightly detached sense of isolation. Push through that and there’s fairly abrupt power delivery waiting beyond the slow throttle tip-in, and quick, decisive responses from the gumball tires just beyond the usual on-center steering dead zone.

As the road bends ahead, you turn the wheel, and for a split-second nothing hap­pens. This despite a faster steering ratio than in the C280. Then the car turns in like a good sports sedan should. But sometimes it turns in more than you’d predicted from the slow off-center response, so you have to redraw your line. There’s a momentary absence of linearity, and it’s less than reas­suring. And yet, beyond the film of vagueness, there’s little to complain about. The C36 has bags of power and tons of grip. Once in the throes of a wide-open throttle blast, the car commu­nicates its intentions in no uncertain terms. And once you’ve swung into a bend and the car has taken a firm and determined set, the handling is wholly confidence-­inspiring. But still, there’s that moment of transition as the C36 wakes from its languor.

This paradox arises, we think, because of the car’s parentage. Mercedes-Benz provided the layer of refinement found in all of its cars. AMG, on the other hand, prepares cars for competition and ampli­fies performance any way it can. For Klaus Ludwig, who drove a Mercedes-Benz in the ’94 German Touring Car Champi­onship, AMG produced enough to win.

For the rest of us, AMG has imbued the $51,750 C36 with the grunt to see off almost anything with four doors. And it has done so without harming the car’s social acceptability. While the aero body kit and big wheels speak of sportiness, they do it without demeaning the car’s image. Nor has any of the driveline or sus­pension work markedly compromised its versatility for everyday use. In that respect, the C36 is even better than a BMW M3. Perhaps because of that, it has less of the M3’s exuberance, expressive­ness, and communication. But for the kind of driver Mercedes is courting, it has about all it needs.