Our spies caught this flared-up Mercedes C63 AMG testing in mainland Europe this week. Is it a hotter C63? The jury remains out.
Now Mercedes has come back to us after some digging around and claimed it is not an official development car. ‘It’s probably some lash-up by a tuning company or somesuch,’ said a spokesman.
It’s worth noting that this car is a pre-facelift model; Merc is readying a revised 2011 C-class, and wouldn’t waste time developing the outgoing car, according to other sources at Mercedes.
So it’s not a Mercedes official vehicle?
We remain unsure. Our spies on the ground pointed out that this car is registered to BB for Boblingen, a suburb of Stuttgart – exactly as all official Merc prototypes are. And the photographer claimed the same vehicle had been seen in the AMG facility at the Nurburgring in recent weeks.
We had been wondering if this was a Black Series edition of the C63. In an interview with the new incoming chief of Mercedes’ go-faster division in the new December 2010 issue of CAR Magazine, Ola Kallenius told us that further Black Series models were under development.
‘They will only come every now and again, and must be very special,’ he told CAR.
However, other senior AMG sources have told us that Black Series AMGs will remain two-doors, rather than saloons or wagons.
With those flared wheelarches, this C63 looks like a DTM racer!
Indeed. Could it be that Mercedes is developing a roadgoing car to celebrate their success in the DTM German touring car series?
Those blistered wheelarch extensions provide a visual link to the racers, and the recent DR520 edition shows that Mercedes isn’t averse to doing special editions of the AMG range.
The mystery continues…