Yatch club: Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG Coupe and Bentley Continental GT

If money wasn’t an issue, which one would you buy? I have to ask you this very pertinent question because the Bentley costs Rs 3.28 crore and the S 63 AMG Coupé, a cool `2.62 crore. Before taxes. If it were up to me, I’d pick the AMG because it is more powerful, significantly lighter and considerably nuttier. But I’m just a baboon bent on speed and I don’t think that irritating lady who keeps calling me to offer HDFC’s latest loan scheme will lend me that much money. Yet.

So, I’ll just offer my humble road tester verdict on the two cars I cannot possibly hope to own in this lifetime and possibly the next as well. Also, I have this nagging feeling that at least the people who buy these cars in India, buy them on pure badge value and that means the Bentley will win outright because even up here in the stratosphere, telling people you have a Bentley is just a bit cooler, isn’t it?

This then is a story about the underdog (if you can call an AMG an underdog!) because, for all the Bentley’s charms, I suspect the S 63 Coupé is the younger, cooler car. I could be wrong.

These Germans
Yes, even the Bentley is German. Volkswagen owns Bentley and the Continental GT is based on a VW Phaeton chassis, mass produced in Germany and then shipped to the old Bentley facility in Crewe, UK for final assembly. There’s no doubting the Continental GT’s Bentley-ness though. It looks powerful just standing there under the haze of Noida’s dust. Open the long, pillar-less doors and you’re greeted with more leather than the average Mumbai kitty party, lovely aviation inspired clocks and truly sumptuous seats. Then you look around some more and find a bunch of plastic buttons that really shouldn’t be there. You’ll also discover that to adjust the suspension, you have to press a button and then slide your finger across the touchscreen to set desired spring rates. It’s cool and after some time, not so cool. Especially when you want to adjust it at the speeds this car is capable of.

The AMG’s approach is much younger. This car is the replacement for the CL 63 AMG and, like the Conti GT, you get the drama of the pillar-less doors, you get superb, gazillion-way adjustable seats and a dashboard that’s as digital as the Bentley’s is analogue. But, where the Bentley’s cabin leans towards old world charm, the AMG definitely feels the better blend of a business class seat and a planter’s club. And then you start the engine.

Blowers
Under the AMG’s hood is a 5.5-litre, twin-turbo making 557bhp. At full throttle, the acceleration is violent enough to drain the botox from your face. 100kmph comes up in 4.2 seconds and by the time it tops out at 298kmph, you’ll be ready to throw away a small bit of your estate to own one.

Not that the Bentley is slow but its 4-litre twin-turbo V8 makes ‘only’ 500bhp and takes a half second more than the AMG to get to 100kmph. The extra time is partly down to the 200 kilos that the Continental’s V8 has to carry around.
In all honesty though, I don’t think owners of these cars visit pubs, so there’s no question of winning pub-fact wars. A second here or there in these sub-five second cars is rather inconsequential because both are effortless and all you need to do to attain monumental speeds in either is keep a light foot on the throttle. They waft with ease – the Continental GT in eighth gear, the AMG in seventh – and you could probably get to Beijing today if you start out early enough. All said and done though, you can feel the extra urge from the S 63 Coupé – it does, after all, have 900Nm of torque against the Conti GT V8’s piddling 660Nm – and that makes it a smidgen more urgent, a wee bit more effortless.

Ups and downs
What keeps the S 63 AMG from being utterly comfortable is its AMG sports suspension. Even with Magic Body Control (that scans the road ahead and tells the suspension how to react) set in ‘Comfort’, it feels lumpy and constantly fidgets over small imperfections. Jumping into the Bentley after that makes you feel like someone ironed the road out. Even at its firmest setting, the Bentley’s suspension keeps you more isolated than the S 63 AMG and in cars like these, this is an important victory.

The Continental GT also allows you to carry a lot more speed through corners because of its tremendous all-wheel-drive traction. The problem is, despite its astonishing grip, it isn’t very engaging. It tells you that you can go very fast, and it hides its mass well, but it keeps you at arms distance when all you want is some communication. The S 63 AMG’s rear-wheel-drive configuration feels more natural. The steering tells you more of what the front wheels are doing, the chassis feels more neutral and we all know the advantages of switching traction control off on a powerful rear-wheel-drive car. Sigh, if they could just get that ride sorted, this car would have won easily.

The end
I like the Bentley, I really do. I love how it relaxes you, I love the way it wafts and I love how it keeps you at arms distance from the outside world. But, I like the S 63 Coupé more. Screw the ride, I love how it energises you everytime it makes a lunge for the horizon, I love that you can play hooligan in it and I love that it feels tighter and more responsive when you are really pushing it. It feels like more of a sportscar and that’s why it gets my vote. The vote of a baboon bent on speed.