The 2023 Mercedes-AMG C43: Impressive on all fronts
August 09 2022,
The 2023 Mercedes-AMG C 43 4Matic sedan arrives in showrooms as the most powerful four-cylinder production Mercedes ever built. It makes 402 horsepower (that can be increased by 13 hp if the right conditions are met) and 369 pound-feet of torque from a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine with an electric-assist turbo, enough for a 0-100 km/h sprint of just over 4.5 seconds.
Those are some fantastic numbers for a compact sedan to be sure, but don’t think the new C 43 is a drag-strip demon and nothing else. Quite the contrary, as it gets a number of features to make it excel in the corners as well.
It starts at the axles, which come with rear-wheel steering (RWS) a standard. The rear wheels can swivel to a maximum of 2.5 degrees, turning opposite from the fronts up to 100 km/h to help reduce the turning radius to make parking and maneuvering through tight city quarters even easier. Past 100 km/h, they turn in parallel with the fronts – up to 0.7 degrees – to virtually lengthen the wheelbase, improving stability and response to steering inputs.
The (RWS) system gets modified by the AMG Dynamic Select drive program, which provides Slippery, Comfort, Sport, Sport + and Individual drive modes. Those are also tied to specific settings for the electronic stability program as well as the engine’s responsiveness, transmission behaviour and suspension.
Speaking of suspension: an adaptive damping system reads the road below faster than you can blink and adjusts responsiveness to each wheel accordingly. The preselected suspension setting, the road below and even your driving style are taken into account to provide the perfect chassis response no matter the conditions. That means this car can traverse continents just as handily as it can cut corners on your favourite mountain road.
With all that power and chassis tech, what’s not to like? Come visit us and see this great new C 43 for yourself!
