2017 Mercedes Benz C63 S AMG CONVERTIBLE FIRST DRIVE REVIEW

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friends today an experiment let's take oh I don't know a two-door German go

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fast car and shot the roof off

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not exactly something you would take to a track but where shall we drive it

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what we did something similar in Spain and really enjoyed it

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let's try something new to us but not too far

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let's say Italy we don't want something too touristy about the Croatia side of

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Italy and with that let's see what's in store for us under the son of the Gulf

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of Trieste

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I feel like as of late I've been starting these episodes with we've been

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here before or I'm feeling a touch of deja vu and this is really no exception

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we've driven this engine before we have driven us in the c63 s coupe

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so just as a recap what is it well as a 4-litre twin turbo v8 and when you think

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Mercedes and four liter twin-turbo v8 you probably think AMG GT and yes this

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is a related engine but it's not exactly the same engine the biggest difference

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is in the GT it's a dry-sump lubrication system a psycho killer

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this one is not so what's going on here as it related to this application

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well there is the base c63 which is 469 horsepower which comes in at a

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relatively high engine speed of 5,500 RPM stays flat all the way to 60 250 rpm

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and then there's the torque which were excited about which is 479 pound-feet of

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torque comes in at a very low 1750 rpm stays flat all the way up to 4,500 rpm

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now this one we have here of course I picked out the full fat c63 s

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convertible

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so this gives us a bit more power so on the horsepower it goes up to 503

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horsepower which also comes in it

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5500 RPM stays flat all the way up to 60 250 rpm

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but the torque that's really the biggest change for me it's 516 pound-feet of

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torque and that comes in and also 1750 rpm stays flat all the way up to 4,500

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rpm

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now let's put that aside and notice what's going on here well first thing

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you notice is this was hand-built by Patrick Vogel and number two there's two

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turbos that are sitting here

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notice where they are they said kind of on top of the engine in the v or a hot v

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is sometimes this is referred to and really there are a couple reasons why an

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engineer would put the turbos in the v the first and foremost is the packaging

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and look at the size of the front end of this car and they have shoehorned a v8

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and really what was meant for a four and a six cylinder

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but there's a second less obvious benefit from the packaging and that's

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the placement

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so notice where the turbo charges are here and notice the distance from the

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front of the car now if I were to take these turbochargers and shoehorn them

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down here somewhere

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the air has to travel farther to get to each turbocharger

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we're in this case the year has less distance to travel

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thus it cools them more efficiently now that all sounds great but how does it

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work out on the road

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first things first welcome to Slovenia

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not only is this the first time we are ever shooting a car in Slovenia

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what is the first time i personally I've ever been here in a stunning place as

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you can see

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so yeah there's that now let's press on to the car shall we

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now you and I are not unfamiliar with this engine

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our job now is to unpack how this works in the heaviest version of the group and

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that is the convertible

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now if you remember in the c63 s coupe

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there's a whole bunch of different changes that you can make to the

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throttle mapping right now I'm in the comfort mode and ok we're going downhill

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so let's get to the bottom of this hill by the way just stunning

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let's put our foot into it around this corner and yes there is plenty of

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pulling power even in comfort mode but was that really a shocker so let's try

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this now

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a little bit tighter when you get a nice little bridge here but let's prepare and

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go into sport mode going up this look at this bridge

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oh boy that's beautiful now let's put our foot into it

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Oh lost a little bit back there so yeah I would say there's plenty of pulling

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power especially on mildly damn slovenian roads

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you're really if I'm honest you don't notice a huge difference in pulling

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power

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even with the heavier car ok now we get into a clearing here let's go into the

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Sport Plus mode put our foot into it a bit more because we can see where we're

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going

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plenty of pulling power is it is frenetic is the coop

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maybe not but I don't know if that's a function of the added weight for the

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fact that it's an open car

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now let's go to full fat mode race mode put our foot into it a bit more maybe

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not around this turn a little bit of delay

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now wait florida we go oh yes it's got bloody a power where you get to go

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sideways

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now that's if we're going to cover in a bit

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that's the stability control mode so yes you can have fun even with the

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electronic bits coming in with the reality of situation is that is the

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higher threshold mode basically when you go into race mode it switches you from

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the full stability control to a basically a higher limit of intervention

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and yes you can turn off the stability control system

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haha without was a visitor so check yes there is plenty of power even though

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it's heavier but we go over a beautiful bridge there and then can I just say I

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love driving in Slovenia

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ok so this is the point of the episode where you need to break out your

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notebook

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you're at your sketch or speak and spell whatever it is you use because there are

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a number of bits that affect the driving dynamics is called moving parts because

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that's what they are and we need to really complicate things further because

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we have to put them into columns

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there's the c63 in the c63 s so let's dive in with the brakes

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so if this were a c63 the rotors would be 14.2 inches in diameter

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but this is not a c63 to c63 s so that means it's 15.4 inches in diameter but

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to further complicate things

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this one is fitted with optional carbon ceramic rotors

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so the front is 15.8 let's put aside the brakes and let's move on 12 like the

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adjustments

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so you and I have driven many Mercedes the GLC all the way up like the s65

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coupe in every one of those

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there's like a dynamic ride control so you can adjust everything from the

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throttle mapping the steering mapping to the dampers are from a comfort all the

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way up to a sport plus or in this case a race but in this case and we found this

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out in the c63 coupe episode

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there is a separate ride control function which is just the dampers

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so you can separate the dampers basically how you map the dampers from

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the mapping of the engine the transmission the steering so for example

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you could have this in race mode and this in comfort mode

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not that you would but you could so let's put all of that aside and now

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let's focus on really what makes this different again and the c63 s coupe

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episode that we learned was more than just a c63 or just a SI sedan was just

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two doors locked off of it

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there were a number of engineering changes but the biggest thing that

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contributed to the driving dynamics that car was the change in the with so for

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example

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it was about two inches wider here

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here but about two and a half wider in the rear

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now the convertible is more based on the coop

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then it is the sedam and there were some other changes and you really need to

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check out that episode because we saw all the bits here like the suspension

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bits

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there was a whole new rear suspension and different knuckles up front all that

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kind of stuff we saw a naked in that episode so make sure you check that out

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but now we need to get to that dirty six-letter word the weight so no one was

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pretending that AMG's are like cars in the past

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however in any case where you chop the roof off of a car you're always going to

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increase weight and that's not just the top itself but it's the top plus all the

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structure bits to make it still least somewhat strong vehicle

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well if you're looking from a coupe to this

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it's about 275 pounds difference but from the sedan to this it's about 450

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pounds difference and some of the biggest components that lead to that is

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the top is about a hundred and ten pounds more and then all of the

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structure that goes into it is about a hundred and sixty-five pounds more

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ok now that we've covered that dissertation on driving dynamics

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let's see how this all works on the roads of slovenia or is it italy i

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forgot which border we crossed yet anyway

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let's just find out how it works

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and here's where we get to the challenging part of the episode

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trying to bring three things together that aren't really known as the best of

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friends

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number one reduce structural rigidity number to a lot of horsepower and number

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three a significant increase in weight

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so with that a little inside baseball here as i crossed over from Italy into

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slovenia I deliberately look for some very less than perfect roads here to

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unpack whether three competing theories could coexist harmoniously under one

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roof or under one folder roof but you get what I mean

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now for that answer we need to backtrack a bit to the coupe version of this car

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back in October we spoke with both the Mercedes engineers as well as the other

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thoughts about engineers and they went on and on and on about the two extra

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inches of with the front of the coop and two and a half extra inches of width in

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the rear of the coop but then they became suspiciously quiet after that

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conversation but I would argue they were quiet because the with was not so much

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for the coop

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it was more for this car because they knew this was going to be a bit of a

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porker

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so if you notice you go around a curve in this expression a hard curve

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you do not get a lot of lean and most importantly you don't get a lot of squat

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and the outside rear wheel

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something you wouldn't expect in a car that's carrying almost an extra 500

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sounds wait now with that this is both the Mercedes and an AMG which is to say

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the suspension has enough technology to make the entirety of Silicon Valley

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blush so as we cascades for the damper settings that's when you notice the

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structure difference

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like for example this comfort mode and if i'm honest this is an AMG first

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mercedes-benz second which means this thing shouldn't be called comfort mode

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should be called compliant mode and friendly that's why you by AMG

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anyway I digress which gets us to a point of respect from with a one end the

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strength of say a block of Steel and the other end all the structural rigidity

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back

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so in that context this two-door high-power a mg convertible displays all

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the structural characteristics of a block of aluminum but that's until you

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get up to the sport plus in the race bones

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remember both the mechanical and the eid if we talked about

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well once again it's this car that i'm starting to see why the engineers put it

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in both the coupon to convert and it's at this point that those disparities

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start to convert

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take for example that c63 s coupe that we drove pretty much anybody can push

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that thing hard to a curve and be able to look like a rock star

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and that's a big function of that electronic diff

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it's not a break actuated torque vectoring system like you see in most

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cars

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it's this multi clutch system it's actually in the differential sending

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torque to the wheel that needs it but in this case

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remember you've got that extra weight class structure

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so what's happening here is it will do a lot of what the coop does not a hundred

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percent maybe about ninety percent with coop does now let's stand back more

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stuff because when i stepped off the plane here I didn't expect any of this

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this is kind of an old-school feeling car away in that it's demanding more

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driver involvement from you and I'm dare i say better driver skills because it

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got to be a better driver to know what to do with that extra weight and all

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this power in this one contain package which I got to say is kinda refreshing

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to have this autonomy left back to you

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the person and not the engineers

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so for quite some time i had this lovely vision of visiting the Adriatic sitting

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on the Gulf of trieste looking at beautiful cars and even more beautiful

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women under the glorious son

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sadly that is not meant to be but there is good news this is an opportunity to

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check out the roof and this is a more involved affair that my Elise which

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basically has a towel and two plastic rods and hold it into place

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this believe it or not is a weight saving measure so I already told you

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this is about 40 and 50 pounds more than the stand about - 250 more than the

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coupe

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so the idea and stuff . what the engineers was to do some weight saving

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high in the car and they did that by looking at load-bearing and

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non-load-bearing bits in the roof

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so here for example where the roof meets the car

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this is steel heavier but then a non-load-bearing area the leading edge

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here this is magnesium and then the top

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close it here not the ones back here these are aluminum

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now notice you can't even see the structure here and that's a function of

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the actual top itself

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so you got the canvas yeah then there's the insulation and then there's the

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headliner underneath it

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ok so we've got that and I know it's still raining somewhat here folks

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instead got are gonna love this but I still want to demonstrate something to

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you guys here so let's try this

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so the top goes down and one of the challenges and I spoke to one of the

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aerodynamicist that's the actual title are any convertible no matter what it is

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when you put someone in the back exactly where this is shoots the air right into

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the rear passengers face

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so a couple years ago they invented this thing here that comes up there and there

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and the idea is to route the air over the rear passengers so they don't get

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blown in the face but this is a newer version where this it's a bit higher

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notice it's more integrated from a an aesthetic point of view and this one all

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systems this is just a bit higher as well so hopefully we can test this out

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with the top down but until then I think we've got a bit of a rain delay here

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have I shown you the power station over there that's been rotating we can look

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at that while it's ready

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ok so as we get back to the city centre of 3s here

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the rain has somewhat subsided but it still looks somewhat ominous out there

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so let's focus on some of the interior details number one

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this is an AMG so that's to say i WC clock

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people this is what you need in every car and a number to the roof

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so we already talked about the way the layers of all this kind of thing

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basically the interior it is definitely noisier than that dawn no doubt about

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that actually makes you realize how quiet that Dawn was and also the

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finisher you got this like plastic headliner kind of thing here you can i

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just say how cool this is

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we were driving around the old city here with scooters and everything

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look at this we're like AMG's latest in the old world of the Croatia side of

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Italy

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how cool is that anyway headliner not quite the same finishes that rolls-royce

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on but then again this is what a quarter of the price at a bargain at that

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so long and short of the story this is while a nice finish not quite the detail

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that I've seen in other cars and we'll spend some more time talking about this

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in the s-class convertible which is going to be coming up

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probably towards the end of june july and with that everything else is kinda

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well the mercedes-benz c63 coupe we saw before they do have this edition one

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that is it's this satin white finish on the outside and sat and carbon fiber not

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a big carbon fiber fan but I gotta tell you this thing is kinda cool and I would

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love to see the would guess that would be second choice for me

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and with that we're back to the water and main piazza

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what is proven to being well not so sunny 3s or clear as day it done so in

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summary what we got

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well two things number one let's just say upcoming storm and number two to be

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honest I've always been a convertible freak but even I have to admit these are

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imperfect vehicles and that's really a function of two things number one

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the minute you lock the roof off of any vehicle you compromise the structural

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integrity and number two the packaging constraints are really challenges of

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where do you put the folding roof or in the case of like those origami hardtops

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get even worse back there but then when you add this much power

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that's when you exacerbate any let's just say shortcomings that were in said

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vehicle

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so really on paper this it shouldn't really work

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but after spending some time on the lovely slovenian and italian countryside

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roads

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it actually does and does so really well but it's a function of some of the

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changes that were made in the coop with some of the driving dynamics changes

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from the folks at AMG with the way they changed the suspension on these things

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but in reality it all works together

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I guess the best way to put it it's more than the sum of its parts

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so with that I want to turn this around to you guys because we're starting to

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see more of these

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like for example the corvette zo6 that is a track car that frankly when you cut

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the roof off of it you can't take it on a track

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much like you couldn't take this on the track well no governing body would let

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you because you have to make major changes to do it and I don't think

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anybody would spend the money on this would actually do that

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so my question to you is this what would you do with this what is this a tool for

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is it a function of just going down the beautiful roads on the Adriatic here or

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do you just want to have the bragging rights of the most powerful convertible

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and I'm looking for your input on this or if this actually is more power

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would you rather have the c300 of the sea 43 and you know what for good

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measure

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is this just something you wouldn't have because you would take this the coupe

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version of this on a track

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and don't just tell me yes or no but give me the why or why not and for good

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measure let me know what region of the world you live it

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let me know in the comments below or via our social media motoman TV : word modem

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and evil word facebook twitter and instagram with that I want to leave you

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with two things number one make sure you download our fancy new mobile

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application which you can download for free at Apple iTunes and Google Play and

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number two a fun fact

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so we already talked about how you can operate the roof up to 30 miles an hour

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in this vehicle

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but really when you're going 30 miles an hour with a big group going up like that

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it's not a roof it's a sale so what did the engineers and stood God have to like

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dial in terms of pressure to the hydraulic system to get that thing to go

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up to 30 miles an hour

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the answer one ton from Slovenia until I see you next time

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bitch betta