2026 Mercedes-AMG GT63 S E Performance 4-Door Coupe Review: A Mouthful, a Handful and an Eyeful

Key Points in This Review

• The 2026 Mercedes-AMG GT63 S E Performance 4-Door Coupe is a high-performance sports sedan that’s very entertaining when driven hard but isn’t terribly suitable for daily driving.
• The purpose of the plug-in hybrid system is for greater performance, not efficiency; this car can’t go far on electric power alone, but it uses its hybrid system and battery boost to make the car quicker.
• The car’s interior is dated, with a last-generation MBUX multimedia system and touch-sensitive steering-wheel controls that make it feel in need of a redo. 

It feels like the first thing to do in any new German luxury car review is help readers decipher the name: The full name of the car you see here is indeed the 2026 Mercedes-AMG GT63 S E Performance 4-Door Coupe 4Matic. Ugh. 

What all that nomenclature means is this is a high-performance (AMG) car (4-Door Coupe) model (GT) in the highest-performance trim (63 S) equipped with a plug-in hybrid powertrain (E Performance) and all-wheel drive (4Matic). And despite it being called an AMG GT and listed under the “Coupes” section of the Mercedes-Benz website, it’s based on the previous-generation E-Class sedan (an all-new AMG GT 4-Door is expected soon). 

Related: 2025 Mercedes-AMG GT63 Pro 4Matic+: Pro Means Faster

This car is Mercedes’ answer to the Porsche Panamera. It’s a four-door hatchback with coupe-like styling, a racier interior, powerful engine choices, increased handling performance and wild look-at-me design details, all of which combine to make it a rare, crave-worthy car. But is such a thing really what people want from Mercedes-Benz? And is it better than the Panamera or the BMW M8 Gran Coupe? We took one on a tour of Los Angeles and the Malibu canyons to find out.

How Much Does a 2026 Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe Cost?

There are a few versions of the Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe to choose from, featuring different powertrains and very different starting prices (all prices below include a $1,250 destination fee):

• GT43 4-Door Coupe: $103,350
• GT53 4-Door Coupe: $114,250
• GT63 4-Door Coupe: $159,600
• GT63 S E Performance 4-Door Coupe: $201,750

Yes, you read that right: There’s a nearly $100,000 difference between the lowliest trim on the list and the highest. The lineup starts with the GT43, which is powered by a 362-horsepower, turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six-cylinder engine mated to a nine-speed automatic transmission, with AWD and a Mercedes-reported 0-60 mph time of 4.8 seconds. Stepping up from there is the GT53, which uses a tuned version of that 3.0-liter engine that makes 429 hp and can go from 0-60 in 4.4 seconds. There’s a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 in the GT63 that pumps out 577 hp and has a 0-60 time of 3.3 seconds. But the top dog is the GT63 S E Performance PHEV, which adds a battery-assisted electric motor that boosts power to the rear axle and makes a system-rated 831 hp and 1,032 pounds-feet of torque. Mercedes says this car can get from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds — supercar territory in a four-door sedan.

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My Kind of Green Machine

• Takeaway: The GT63 S E Performance uses its hybrid system to boost performance instead of fuel economy.

This Mercedes isn’t really the kind of car you have in mind when you think of a plug-in hybrid, which is typically a gas-electric vehicle with a larger battery, usually able to go an extended distance on electric-only power before the gas engine kicks in to help it out. But not all PHEVs are eco-warriors; some manufacturers use hybrid systems to boost performance instead of fuel economy, and that’s what we have here. The E Performance’s twin-turbo V-8 is plenty strong, and when you combine it with the instant torque available from an electric motor driving the rear axle, acceleration goes from strong to fierce in a hurry. 

But the AMG GT63 S E Performance 4-Door Coupe (which we will henceforth refer to simply as “the GT”) likes to keep itself in electric mode if it can, killing the engine in coast-down situations, mild around-town driving and highway cruises. For a performance vehicle, it’s kind of amazing how often the gas engine is not running, but it’s always just a quick stab of the go-pedal away from bursting to life and helping rocket the car through traffic or up a mountainside switchback.

Fuel economy doesn’t really get any help from the electric system. The GT’s all-electric range was listed by the EPA for 2025 as 1 mile with a fuel-economy rating of 28 mpg-equivalent combined, or 18 mpg combined on gas alone — which is frankly awful for any PHEV (and though EPA ratings aren’t yet available for 2026, nothing is mechanically different for the new model year). It does have a drive mode setting that allows for all-electric operation, but it only works when the battery is reasonably full. It can recharge itself while driving (especially if you’re descending a mountain), but there’s no dedicated “charge mode” for the engine, only a Battery Hold mode designed to keep an already-full battery full. This is frankly more useful in European cities that charge fees for operating gas vehicles in city centers (called a “congestion charge”), but which exempt electric or plug-in vehicles operating in electric mode. 

Looks Like L.A.

• Takeaway: Green Hell Magno is a special-order semigloss (not quite fully matte) paint that’s striking but requires special treatment to clean.

You can’t ignore the first and most obvious aspect of this GT’s appearance: it’s green. The color is called Green Hell Magno, and it’s a $9,900 special-order semigloss (not quite fully matte) paint that’s part of the Mercedes-Benz Manufaktur customization program. “Green Hell,” for those not in the know, is the colloquial nickname for the Nurburgring racetrack in Germany coined by racing driver Jackie Stewart in 1968. It runs through a dense forest and is notoriously long and tricky to drive, and it’s used by the world’s automakers as a test circuit for performance vehicles. Green Hell might also describe how difficult this matte paint is to care for — it requires a lot of special treatment to avoid accidentally making it shiny. No automatic car washes, no rubbing it with an ordinary towel, no waxing or polishing. 

Combined with the GT’s optional 21-inch black wheels and an AMG Aerodynamics Package (which staples that silly rear wing onto the hatch), it makes for a stunning Incredible Hulkmobile that turns heads like few things can in a car-jaded town like L.A. It wouldn’t be my first choice of hues, but I get the appeal — it definitely stands out, and it actually gets a preferential position at the valet parking stand. That’s not an easy thing to achieve on looks alone in this city.  

Great for Track Duty, Less So for Street Work

• Takeaway: In day-to-day driving, the GT63 S E Performance is a calm but noisy and not entirely comfy luxury car; when driven more aggressively, it showcases its legit performance chops.

Out on the mean streets of L.A. (translation: endless stop-and-go traffic and fleetingly rare moments of driving faster than 35 mph), the GT is a big, calm but not entirely comfy luxury sedan. The seats in this top model are heavily bolstered, making them unpleasant for commuting or highway slogs (and tricky to get into and out of due to high thigh bolsters). The interior is not quite as flashy as the exterior, featuring a monochromatic-black treatment accented by matte carbon-fiber trim and silver accents. The center console apes the look of the one in the AMG GT two-door, but it feels a little incongruous given most of the rest of the interior is lifted from the old E-Class sedan, including the awful AMG steering wheel (with its touch-sensitive controls) and the older-style MBUX multimedia system.

This GT is available as a four- or five-seat car depending on whether you get the center console that extends into the backseat. Suffice it to say there isn’t a lot of headroom or legroom in the backseat due to the sloping roofline and chunky front sport seats. It’s more than vestigial — you can put people back there, they just won’t want to stay for long. The trunk is plenty spacious, however, despite some odd bumps for batteries and other systems. Most unusual might be the charging port placement for the PHEV system: in the back bumper.

In stop-and-go traffic, the GT is unhappy. It transitions between electric and gas power smoothly enough, but brake application feels variable. Sometimes the car stops firm and true when you hit the pedal, sometimes you suddenly find you need to push a lot harder because you’re not stopping as quickly as you need to. I suspect there’s something wonky with how the GT’s regenerative braking works (it is adjustable using a right dial controller on the steering wheel) in various drive modes. Ride quality is acceptable, but even the softest setting is performance-car firm. It smooths out at higher speeds on the highway, but you’ll want to avoid potholes and broken pavement if you can. The low-profile summer tires on 21-inch wheels don’t help with ride quality, but the electronically adjustable suspension does what it can. 

The most unpleasant aspect of the GT, though, is the noise it makes — a strange, piped-in electronic growling that sounds like something between a sick cow and a Starfighter, which cannot be shut off but which can be made louder at the click of a button or selection of a sportier drive mode. EVs are required to make low-speed noise to alert pedestrians to their presence, but this isn’t that — it’s noise that’s broadcast into the cabin, an invented electronic performance exhaust sound. I’d rather just have silence and the sound of the sonorous V-8, but even the engine’s exhaust note is muted rather significantly, leaving the whole thing just sounding odd, which quickly becomes tiresome. 

When you take this car up into the canyons, on tight bends through changing elevations, it starts to come into its own. The GT has legit performance chops, racing from corner to corner and allowing itself to be thrown into bends at high speeds with solidity and confidence. It tracks flat through sweepers, rotates with the application of throttle and becomes far more entertaining than it was grumbling along the boulevard between valet stands. The boost brought on by the electric assist is glorious, and when you’ve put the GT into one of its racier performance driving modes, it keeps the V-8 on boil and the transmission in the proper gear for bursts of speed. The multiclutch transmission also shifts with exceptional quickness, without feeling abrupt or “rubber-bandy” in its operation. When you ask this plug-in hybrid powertrain to dance, it does so with force — and it feels much happier doing this than powering a commuter car or luxury limousine. The problem is that most people spend most of their time in those last two activities, which is where the GT feels least at home. 

Drive it like you stole it and you’ll enjoy the GT thoroughly. Drive it like you want to be seen in it and … well, as they say, it’s not how you feel, it’s how you look. 

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About That Price Tag …

• Takeaway: Against rival cars from BMW and Porsche, the Mercedes feels more like an attention-grabber with a lot of compromises.

While the starting price for the 2026 Mercedes-AMG GT63 S E Performance 4-Door Coupe is $201,750, myriad options in my test car bumped that up to $231,970. That’s a staggering price tag compared with the lowliest $103,350 AMG GT43; it’s hard to believe it has that much more in it than the six-cylinder base variant. By comparison, a 2025 BMW M8 Gran Coupe rings in at $142,000 to start (and about $175,000 loaded up), which puts it more in the ballpark of the AMG GT63 versus the GT63 S E Performance. Like the Mercedes, the Porsche Panamera also has a wide price range, starting near the GT43’s starting price and ranging to a high of more than $300,000 if you go crazy with the options list. But the Porsche also provides a staggering variety of appearance customization options, powertrain choices and more to go along with its sublime driving experience in nearly all conditions.

The choice for us would come down to the Mercedes versus the Porsche. The Porsche feels like a more well-rounded, sophisticated machine, while the Mercedes feels more like an attention-grabber with a lot of compromises. Both can be rewarding; choices will come down to personal preferences.

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