The verdict: The Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door feels like a fancier, sportier version of the brand’s mainstay mid-sizer E-Class.
Versus the competition: The AMG GT 53 is a softer, more ostentatious take on the “four-door coupe” idea, less aggressive than rival Porsche Panamera, more opulent than a BMW M850 Gran Coupe and more tech-laden than a Maserati Quattroporte.
You wouldn’t necessarily think the idea of a large sedan styled like a slinky coupe with a low roof and swoopy styling would be in such demand that half a dozen different automakers would create their own versions of said style. But have a quick look at the high end of the sporty luxury sedan market and that’s exactly what you’ll find: The Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door is just one of several models catering to this rarified buyer. It competes with the BMW 8 Series Gran Coupe, Porsche Panamera, Maserati Quattroporte and Audi S7; even the Tesla Model S and Lucid Air could be included in there. They’re all sport-minded, $100,000 luxury cars with serious capabilities and looks to match.
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Mercedes-Benz itself even has another model like this, the CLS450, which is also based on the E-Class sedan and features the same engine as the AMG GT 4-Door coupe, albeit less expensive. But Mercedes takes an approach that gives you options for the GT 4-Door, and they’re largely powertrain-based: The “base” AMG GT43 4-Door coupe features a 362-horsepower, turbocharged inline-six-cylinder engine with mild-hybrid boost; the mid-level GT53 4-Door has the same engine but bumped up to 429 hp; and the top-rung AMG GT63 and GT63 S 4-Doors both feature a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 and make 575 hp and 630 hp, respectively.
The one I review below is the mid-level AMG GT53, featuring the more powerful 3.0-liter inline-six without all the crazy track-oriented features and powertrain (and commensurate price bump) in the GT63. It’s meant less for track driving and more for street driving, it seems, with an opulence to it that makes me wonder who this is for and why someone would pick it over the similar E-Class sedan on which it’s based. Is swoopier styling really enough to justify the price bump and model difference?
You’ve Got Style, You’ve Got Grace
We’ll skip the whole controversy on whether or not this is a proper coupe. Despite having four doors, it suffers from the same characteristics two-door coupes deal with — namely, poor outward visibility, curtailed interior headroom and highway noise issues thanks to the frameless windows. The AMG GT53 is no exception to any of this. The car’s styling is only moderately successful, in my opinion, in trying to bring over the knockout looks of the AMG GT Coupe two-door to a larger canvas. It’s too bulky to have the svelte, sculpted look of its sibling, and instead comes off as somewhat bloated and overstuffed, similar to how the original Porsche Panamera looked before its most recent restyling leaned out its curves. Mercedes’ own CLS four-door coupe is more elegant, more flowing, and I think it does a better job of translating a coupe look to a four-door vehicle.
One thing that does help the AMG GT 4-Door’s looks are large wheels, which this test vehicle did not have. The wheels on my test vehicle were the standard 19-inch wheels that look decidedly undersized for the car (necessitated, I think, by the fact that it came to my house on snow tires in the middle of winter). There are better-looking 20-inch and truly attractive 21-inch wheels available; they’re a must-have for a car like this.
Performance Aplenty
One area that differentiates the AMG GT 4-Door from the CLS is in the way it drives. The mission of the CLS is to be elegant and luxurious, while the AMG GT53 is decidedly skewed toward the sporty end of the super-sedan spectrum. The turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six-cylinder engine cranks out a healthy 429 hp and 389 pounds-feet of torque, accompanied by truly beautiful engine noises that only a straight-six can make. Like most AMG-tuned engines, it produces massive acceleration when called upon, but given this is just the mid-level powertrain and not the crazy twin-turbo V-8, it’s also perfectly civilized around town. It’s mated to an AMG-tuned nine-speed twin-clutch automatic transmission that directs power to all four wheels. The engine is assisted by a mild-hybrid electric boost that’s so mild, it’s all but invisible. You’d never know it was there if Mercedes didn’t tell you about it.
The suspension damping is electronic, as well, and like so many other attributes of Mercedes-Benz and its AMG-tuned vehicles, vehicle systems like ride quality, steering response and transmission behavior are adjustable. Turn them all the way soft for a comfy luxo-cruiser or all the way hard for a supposedly track-capable sports car. I say “supposedly” because cars like these are style statements meant to be seen in and enjoyed on back roads, but they’re not serious track machines for fun weekend club events or parking lot autocrosses. That the company has spent so much effort on AMG-ifying the thing to make you think it’s a track monster just reinforces this image.
But the end result is a low-slung, stylish sedan that’s enjoyable to drive thanks to a beautifully sorted powertrain, copious available power and excellent dynamic responses. The steering isn’t terribly communicative (I partially blame the snow tires I had), and the big car plows through corners with predictable understeer, once again bending my opinion of it to be more of a grand tourer better suited to high-speed cross-country interstates than tight, twisty canyons. Still, it’s a big sedan that you can drive fast, drive aggressively, enjoy doing so and look good doing it. For a lot of buyers in this category, that’s pretty much the list of requirements fulfilled.
Compromises Inside
The interior of the AMG GT 4-Door is one of compromises. There are obvious similarities to the E-Class and CLS, such as the beautiful sweep of the dash, door panels and the instrumentation. There are some AMG touches in there, as well, including bright-red seat belts, sport seat designs and an AMG-style steering wheel with auxiliary controls. But the big difference here is the inclusion of a version of the wide center console that’s been poached from the two-door AMG GT Coupe and plonked down between the front-seat occupants. It’s not identical to the unit in the smaller two-door, but it is indeed distinctive with its buttons and little LCD screens. It feels a lot wider than the console in an E-Class or CLS, eating into width and legroom for those front-seat occupants. Again, it’s a compromise from a big sedan being made into a four-door coupe idea.
That compromise also happens in the headroom department. Versus an E-Class, the AMG GT 4-Door’s A-pillar is noticeably closer to the driver’s head, and the windshield is fairly low, obscuring the view forward and up (though not nearly as bad as it is in the GT Coupe). The backseat suffers more, with that droopy roofline and low door opening making not only for one’s head hard up against the headliner in the backseat, but some interesting contortions on getting into or out of the backseat.
The multimedia system in the AMG GT 4-Door is the latest MBUX system, which works quite well in some ways and less well in others. The voice activation is still a bit buggy, activating whenever anyone says the word “Mercedes,” meaning you can’t talk about the car while driving it unless you want it talking back to you. The touch-sensitive bits on the steering wheel are also maddening, but we’ve covered that before — there are parts of the steering wheel you cannot touch without activating something, which is also quite frustrating, especially in a sporty car meant to be driven aggressively. But the displays are still quite striking in their clarity and size, the information they provide is complete and reconfigurable among several different styles. Once you get familiar with how they work (there will be a learning curve), they function adequately and without too much distraction.
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Why This Over Competitors?
That’s a good question. Honestly, I think it’s going to boil down in the end more toward brand loyalty and personal style preferences. The AMG GT53 4-Door is stylish, customizable, quick and enjoyable to drive, and it makes a definite statement for someone who wants that three-pointed star on their car when they arrive at the club. But it’s not appreciably better than a BMW M850i xDrive, which is equally stylish, excellent to drive, opulently appointed and priced similarly. And if you really want performance in a four-door coupe look, the Porsche Panamera with its myriad trim levels, powertrain choices, electrification options, body styles and price points covers a lot more ground than the AMG GT 4-Door.
Starting price for a 2022 AMG GT43 4-Door is $93,550 including destination fee, which is nearly $20,000 more than Mercedes-Benz’s other four-door coupe, the CLS450. Given the significant design, structural and content changes between them, however, this isn’t entirely surprising. The GT53 4-Door with its more powerful engine starts at $103,650, which is spot on versus its competition. My test car, however, saw a number of options — such as the Burmester premium audio system and AMG sport seats — that pushed the grand total beyond $120,000, which is also not entirely unusual for vehicles in this category. Still, it feels like a lot for a six-cylinder sedan.
What Mercedes-Benz and its sporty-car wizards at AMG have crafted here is something that’s purpose built and targeted at a very specific customer, one who isn’t afraid to lose some function to style, but also isn’t quite ready to go whole hog into the sports car arena. It’s compromise incarnate, but there have been worse compromises made.
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