AMG just did something genuinely wonderful and genuinely infuriating at the same time. Wonderful, because the CLE 646 Spezialanfertigung brings a proper twin-turbo V8 back into a two-door AMG coupe, at a time when everyone else is quietly downsizing to fours and sixes and calling it progress. Infuriating, because they built exactly 30 of them, and it was sold out before most of us even knew it existed.
Finally, an Actual V8
The CLE 646 takes the standard CLE53, rips out its inline-six, and drops in AMG’s 4.0-litre twin-turbo flat-plane-crank V8, tuned to 637 horsepower and 850Nm of torque. Just as importantly, they’ve ditched the standard car’s all-wheel drive in favour of pure rear-wheel drive, sent through a 9-speed automatic. This is exactly the recipe that made the old E55 and C63 so good: a proper V8, sent to the wheels that actually need it, with nothing diluting the experience in between.
On paper the numbers are excellent. 0 to 100kmh in 3.9 seconds, a top speed of 310kmh. Genuinely serious performance, wrapped in a widened body with a proper aero package, coilover suspension, and enough carbon fibre in the fenders, hood, roof and rear apron to remind you this isn’t just a trim upgrade.
But It’s Still a Heavy Bruiser
Here’s where my excitement runs into a wall, though. Despite the carbon fibre and roughly 170kg shaved off the donor car, this thing still weighs 1,895kg. That’s a genuinely hefty number for something wearing a Nürburgring-chasing, track-focused badge. For comparison, the BMW M4 CSL, its most obvious rival on paper, weighs 270kg less at 1,625kg, and gets to 100kmh two tenths of a second quicker despite having 94 less horsepower. All that extra weight in the Mercedes is being covered up by raw power rather than actually solved, which is a very AMG way of doing things, but it’s not quite the same as building something genuinely light and precise.
It’s still going to be a seriously quick, seriously entertaining car. But “we reduced weight by 170kg” sounds a lot more impressive until you realise where it started and where the rival finished up.
Thirty Cars Is Just Cruel
The bigger issue, though, isn’t the weight. It’s the number 30. Thirty examples, worldwide, already sold out before anyone outside Affalterbach had even seen photos of it. The M4 CSL, by comparison, was built in a run of 1,000, which is still exclusive by any normal car standard, but gives roughly thirty times as many enthusiasts an actual shot at owning one.
This is exactly the restomod pricing problem I’ve ranted about before, just wearing a factory badge instead of an aftermarket one. AMG has built something genuinely brilliant, the exact combination of V8, rear-wheel drive and lightweight construction that enthusiasts have been begging manufacturers to keep making, and then made it functionally unobtainable for anyone who isn’t already deep in Mercedes’ collector circles. It’s part of their new Mythos series, the same ultra-exclusive tier that gave us the roofless, windscreen-less PureSpeed limited to 250 units, so this was clearly always designed to be a trophy for existing top-tier customers rather than a car actual enthusiasts could ever realistically buy new.
And Here’s the Genuinely Good News
For once, I actually have real reason to end this on a hopeful note rather than just wishing out loud. The four-cylinder hybrid C63 was, by most honest accounts, a genuine sales disappointment, badly outsold by rivals like the BMW M3 and criticised endlessly by the exact enthusiast base AMG needed on side. And it looks like the message actually landed. AMG’s own CEO has publicly admitted the four-cylinder experiment went too far, said plainly that sometimes a lightweight performance car is just better off with a V8 and nothing else, and confirmed that proper eight-cylinder power is coming back across the range, starting with SUVs before working its way into coupes and sedans.
The CLE 646 isn’t just a nostalgic one-off, then. It’s very possibly the first visible sign of exactly that course correction, AMG dipping a toe back into the V8-and-rear-wheel-drive formula that actually built their reputation in the first place. Do it thirty times next time is progress. Do it thirty thousand times, at a price real enthusiasts can actually reach, and AMG will have properly learned its lesson. Here’s hoping the next V8 isn’t just a trophy for the already-wealthy, but the actual comeback the C63 badge deserves.
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