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2017 Mercedes-AMG C63 S Coupe First Drive

Remember 2008? The government said companies could make food from cloned animals. Derrick Rose became a Bull, Michael Phelps killed it at the Beijing Olympics, the Giants killed gamblers everywhere by beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The money that banks had been dousing in lighter fluid for years finally caught fire courtesy of Lehman Brothers. General Motors admitted it got torched for a $38.7-billion loss in 2007. Oil hit $147 a barrel. Tata introduced the Nano. And Mercedes-Benz gave us the W204 C63 AMG, a sedan we didn't know we'd been waiting for until we drove it. It was hammer in front and hell in back, that naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 with 451 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque swearing in Beelzebub's childhood tongue through four oval pipes jutting from a heart of black diffuser darkness. It was everything AMG had always been, howling mad in a straight line. And everything AMG hadn't been, sharp and fast through a turn. AMG booked a lot of goodwill for that endeavor, a substantial success that bred huge expectations. Not only would we not be surprised by the 2017 AMG C63 S, we would expect it to be outstanding. And it is. But not in the way we expected. What we love about the W205 C-Class sedan is the same thing that gives us pause about the AMG C63 S: they both grew up. The coupe shares only the doors, roof, and decklid with the sedan. The C63 Coupe shares only the doors, roof, and decklid with the standard production car. The hood is 60 millimeters longer, and there's a front splitter ready to make nasty crunching noises around town. The trunk gets a trim blade of a spoiler, strengthening the design connection to the S-Class Coupe. Blistered wheels broaden the C63 S Coupe by 2.5 inches in front and 2.6 inches millimeters in back, putting needed muscle on that otherwise svelte rear end and visually bolting the car to the road. Track is wider, too, and standard 19-inchers fill the wheel wells. It's a beautiful machine, and when draped in one of the 80 bazillion shades of matte silver AMG is known for, it's devastating. Our subjective take is that it's swapped personas with the BMW M4. Now it's the C63 S that channels muscular grace, while the M4 takes Bluto as its spirit animal. What's left to be said about Mercedes interiors, other than to give way for the heckling about the COMAND touchscreen placement? This interior does it like all the rest, with the exception of a small steering wheel with an absurdly fat rim.

2015 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG Coupe

For Mercedes-Benz to truly demonstrate the capabilities and sensations of the S65 AMG Coupe, it needs to commission the building of a highway halfway to the moon. That's right, a ribbon of Autobahn roughly 120,000 miles long, with 50,000 miles of twisties and sweepers. Let's even add some loop-de-loops though the ionosphere, since, you know, we're going all the way with this. We've been following the headlines about progress on a new lunar lander and the SpaceX Mars Colonial Transporter, but we recently discovered that we've already got both of them in the S65 AMG Coupe. This isn't a car, it's a rocket ship. And it's not perfect, but it is spectacular. Starting with the way it looks. When Mercedes unveiled the concept at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show, I wasn't impressed. In fact, I told the Mercedes PR person, "It's fine, but the rear end doesn't do anything for me." And today? I'll have the crow, please, with lots of ketchup. When the test car you see here arrived, my loins tumbled and my knees developed a slight tremble. By the following week I was posing thought experiments like, "What's hotter: me in this car, or nothing else ever?" It's big – just eight inches shorter than the S-Class sedan and only an inch narrower. It's an inch longer than the Porsche Panamera and four inches wider, but just 0.3-inches taller than that slinking sport sedan. Its size and segment seem to have freed the designers' pens, and we think it's the best and most unapologetic expression of the brand's current language. We'd normally vote "nay" to a face full of chrome, but the coupe has the width to spread the polished elements around, and the top-to-bottom three-dimensionality indeed earns the adjective "jewel-like." A button on the center console lifts the entire car to protect those jewels when needed. The profile doesn't give up on the rising, sculpted wedge we've known for years – the one we used to love on the SL-Class. And again, the 16.6-foot expanse of sheet metal gives those opposing swage lines an unhurried opportunity to carve the body. The sidelong swell is enhanced by the carbon-fiber rocker panel laid into the concavity along the bottom, as well as those hips over the rear wheels. Speaking of which, the polished, 20-inch forged rollers are spot on. The bluff backside is sculpted just enough to keep it interesting, from the decklid spoiler to the horizontals across the bumper and carbon diffuser. Mostly, though, it seems to say to anyone behind, "Please.

Recharge Wrap-up: Houston's bus revival, autonomous trucks on the Autobahn

A documentary shows how Houston, Texas significantly improved its outdated bus system. Called High Frequency: Why Houston is Back on the Bus, the short film describes how the city reimagined its bus system to become more efficient, more useful and more popular. Despite some opposition, the change has proven to be effective, with bus ridership up eight percent in three months, and light rail ridership up due to complementary bus routes. See the video above, and read more at CityLab. Automakers sent autonomous semi trucks on the German Autobahn as part of the European Truck Platooning Challenge of 2016. Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and Scania, among other groups, sent platoons of trucks between Stuttgart, Germany, and Rotterdam, Holland. In Mercedes's platoon of three trucks, the lead truck was fitted with lasers and other sensors to guide the convoy down the road. The two following trucks relied on vehicle-to-vehicle communication to trail 50 feet behind the lead, making room for cars to come between them and closing the gaps when able. The close following distance provides fuel economy gains of up to 10 percent in the rearward trucks on account of the reduction in drag. Read more at Hybrid Cars. Renault has reduced NOx emissions in its Euro 6b diesel vehicles in real world driving conditions. By improving its exhaust gas recirculation systems and NOx traps, nitrogen oxide emissions are cut in half on average, under certain driving conditions. The improvements will be included in vehicles leaving the factory beginning in July of 2016. Beginning in October, owners of Renault Euro 6b diesels can have the modifications added to their cars for free. Read more from Renault. Tata Technologies is creating an innovation lab in California to partner with EV technology companies. Having a tech center in California allows Tata to work on technologies that will largely be deployed in the company's main market of Asia. "Today, we are partnering with companies and startups who have aspirations to sell in China, but a lot of what they do is in California," says Samir Yajnik of Tata Technologies. Read more from The Economic Times. BMW's i Ventures is investing in mobility-as-a-service software provider RideCell. RideCell provides technology for services such as carsharing, ridesharing and other transit services. "The convergence of transportation trends in cities is of key importance to BMW," says Ulrich Quay, head of BMW i Ventures.