The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 is immensely powerful, but it’s also just immense, weighing in at more than 4,300 pounds. It’s properly quick, but that’s an insane amount of weight for a sports car to carry, about as much as the old BMW M5 weighed. Tonnage like that puts immense stress on suspension, brake, and cooling system components during a trackday, so Mercedes-AMG has decided to provide some reinforcement with the AMG GT 63 Pro. Let’s dig into it.
To start, the four-liter bi-turbo V8 under the hood now cranks out 26 more horsepower than in the regular AMG GT 63, for a new total of 603. However, that extra power isn’t noteworthy, as adding 26 horsepower to a machine like this is like adding a smidge of whipped cream to one of those sickly sweet over-frosted cupcakes you see in every supermarket. The bigger story is the sheer amount of extra cooling the AMG GT 63 Pro gets. We’re talking about not one, but two extra radiators in the nose, specifically to keep a handle on engine coolant temperatures.
That’s not the end of the cooling tweaks, either. In the regular model, the differentials and the transfer case are cooled using passive heat exchangers. Guess what the AMG GT 63 Pro gets? If you said an electric fluid pump for each of those three heat exchangers, you’d be correct. Talk about adding complexity.
Oh, and then there are the brakes. Because stopping a heavy car generates a ton of heat, and track session braking performance is often limited by the thermal capacity of the braking components, the AMG GT 63 Pro gets massive 16.5-inch carbon ceramic discs on the front axle. Add in revised brake cooling ducts and backing plates, and you should be able to go longer in this heavyweight coupe before experiencing brake fade. Add in no-cost Michelin Cup 2 tires, and the end result should be better braking performance.
Finally, we get to the aerodynamic tweaks. A new front apron, under-car air deflectors, active front spoiler element, and a fixed rear wing combine to reduce front axle lift by more than 66 pounds and increase rear axle downforce by somewhere in the neighborhood of 33 pounds. Sounds great, but why would something this quick have any aerodynamic front axle lift in the first place?
Right, time for a palate cleanser. This is the old AMG GT, specifically the AMG GT R. Like the new AMG GT 63 Pro, it was designed to go hard at the track. However, it weighs 3,686 pounds, hundreds less than the new car. It also features the simplicity of rear-wheel-drive, and a front-mid-engined layout. The result? A properly involving, naturally agile monster that wants to dance rather than pummel the pavement into submission. Hand-on-heart, it’s one of the best cars I’ve ever driven, a brilliant, heart-pounding mixture of malice and precision.
Don’t get me wrong, the AMG GT 63 Pro is properly quick. Mercedes-AMG quotes a zero-to-62 mph time of 3.2 seconds, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a sandbagged figure. However, there’s more to a sports car than just putting figures on the board. For anyone looking for an astonishingly fast GT car that’s track-capable, the AMG GT 63 Pro looks like just the ticket. However, for sports car fans who adored the old AMG GT, this new variant has all odds stacked against it on paper.
(Photo credits: Mercedes-AMG)
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