Cars specialize. Trucks haul and tow. Sports cars inspire. SUVs give families space and safety. But every vehicle also needs to do most things well.
You might buy a truck intending to tow a trailer with it, but you still want to like the sound system. You might buy the sports car of your dreams hoping to attend track days with it, but you still need it to be comfortable.
So the notion of an SUV with extraordinary handling and sleek, coupe-like looks might sound odd. But, when you find a winding road in the 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLC 43 Coupe, you start to understand. Yes, you can have the grip of all-wheel drive (AWD), the high seating position of a sport utility vehicle, and handling like a crisp small car.
It takes an AMG to get it — specifically my $78,830 test vehicle with a $70,600 MSRP, a $1,150 delivery fee, and the rest for the Driver Assistance Package, a Burmester surround sound system, 21-inch AMG Y-spoke wheels, and a few other luxuries.
But a week of driving this highly specialized version of Mercedes’ GLC small SUV taught me that automotive engineers can build well-rounded cars that specialize and generalize well.
A Tiny Junction in a Venn Diagram
First, let’s clarify exactly what this car is. It sits in a niche in a niche in a niche.
The GLC is the current compact luxury SUV from Mercedes-Benz. Our reviewers tend to like its technology and the huge number of trim levels, letting buyers craft the specific car they want.
The GLC Coupe is a version of that car with a sporty, sloped roofline. It gives up some space and utility in exchange for style. It’s an aesthetic choice, mechanically identical to the more traditional version.
AMG is the high-performance division of Mercedes-Benz. It builds faster, more luxurious versions of Mercedes’s regular lineup. AMG models make up a small portion of the company’s product, but a big part of its reputation.
So, this is the high-powered coupe version of a compact SUV. A more powerful version — the AMG GLC 63 S E Performance Coupe — will come later in the model year, but for now, this is the most powerful version available.
Tech-Look Cabin
Some designers conceive of luxury as warm wood tones and soft leather. AMG will build you one of those if you want it.
But my tester’s cabin aimed more toward spaceship aesthetics. The entire dashboard was a huge expanse of metallic carbon-fiber-look material. It doesn’t overwhelm your senses with screens. The driver faces both an information cluster screen and a head-up display that largely keeps you from needing it. The center stack has a a portrait-mounted screen canted slightly toward the driver that runs Mercedes’ well-liked MBUX user experience. The brand’s signature turbine-look air vents remain both attractive and great at putting cooled or warmed air exactly where you want it.
One minor nit to pick: the volume is controlled via an inconvenient touch-sensitive slider that is hard to use without looking at it.
Red stitching in the black leather upholstery (the only color option this year) looks sporty.
AMG vehicles offer a wealth of information about the car’s performance. On the AMG GLC 43 that includes an active display that shows you how much horsepower each axle is currently receiving. It’s entertaining and quickly shows you that even when you have 416 hp at your disposal, you’re often using about 30 even on the highway.
Also amusing: You can adjust the seats as you can the seats in any other car, or just tell it how tall you are, and it will move to pre-set positions for your height…provided that you are between 4-foot-9 and 7-foot-4.
Performance Is a Sensory Experience
But the numbers mean little. Drive this car, and the sound will mean more.
A hand-built 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine equipped with an electric exhaust gas turbocharger powers the AMG GLC 43 Coupe. It features a technology borrowed from the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 racing team. It uses a tiny electric motor directly mounted to the shaft of the turbocharger. Electricity spins the turbo before exhaust gas takes over, reducing dreaded turbo lag.
The engine is also fitted with a belt-driven starter generator. Together, they make this 4-cylinder engine produce 416 hp — an impressive number.
In Comfort mode, it’s quiet and sedate. In Sport + mode, it snarls. As the turbocharger spins down after throttle lift-off, the exhaust pops and pings like a popcorn maker. Mercedes amplifies that sound into the cabin. It’s exhilarating.
So is the previously mentioned handling capability. The AMG GLC uses rear-axle steering. At low speeds, the rear wheels turn up to 2.5 degrees against the angle of the front wheels. At higher speeds, they turn with the front wheels.
The effect is stunning. This is an SUV, but it handles almost like a 2-seat sport coupe on a winding road. There is nothing else like it in the compact luxury SUV world.
Put them together, and you get a compact SUV capable of truly spirited driving.
It Hits an Odd Target
The group of car shoppers looking for a high-performance small SUV without SUV space is quite small. But the 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLC 43 gives them exactly what they’re looking for.
Complaints? The rear window is so small that the rear visibility is quite poor. The reverse camera makes this less important because when you’re backing up, the camera shows you everything you need to know. However, when you’re in traffic, rear visibility is very limited.
Otherwise, this car hits the spot — if a spot not many shoppers need to hit. Its greatest competition may be the upcoming AMG GLC 63 S E Performance version it will sit next to in the showroom.
