I review Jeremy Clarkson's car. and LAUNCH it to 60mph!
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00:00This is the Mercedes-AMG CLK 63 Coupe Black Series and it's a super rare, very
00:09cool car and in this video I'm going to tell you all about it, the upgrades that you have
00:12over the standard CLK 63. I'm also going to talk you through the mechanical
00:17changes, the interior changes, some interesting things have happened inside
00:21that cabin and of course the engine upgrades. I'm going to take it for a
00:25drive, see what it's like and I'm going to launch it to see how quick it is or isn't
00:30from 0 to 60 miles an hour.
00:36Mercedes has done six Black Series vehicles so far. Now normally the Black
00:41Series is the pinnacle of the range but not in the case of this CLK. There was
00:45actually a DTM version which was even rarer and even more expensive and then
00:50there's the CLK GTR racing car which was like super rare and super expensive.
00:55This is actually the second Black Series they made. The first was the SLK 55. Now
01:01let's talk about pricing on these cars. So back in the day this thing would set
01:05you back around £100,000. It went on sale in 2008 and in fact they
01:08only sold 600 of them worldwide in that single year and that was it.
01:132008, your lot. As a result these things have held their value extremely well.
01:19Back in 2008 it would have cost you just £30,000 more than the standard
01:22CLK 63. One of those now for a good one will cost you between £20,000 and
01:27£30,000. A decent one of these will still cost you £800,000.
01:33This one because it's low mileage, 20,000 miles on this one, about £120,000.
01:39Now this particular CLK Black Series could be worth even more because it's
01:42rumoured Jeremy Clarkson used to own it. In fact he posted a picture of this very
01:46car on his Twitter feed back in January 2015. If you're interested I'll put a
01:50link to that Twitter post in the description of this video. Now if you're
01:54thinking about buying a CLK 63 Black Series or even a normal CLK or any
01:58used car for that matter, it's important to get the car's history checked to make
02:02sure you aren't buying something that's been stolen, it's got outstanding finance
02:06or has accident damage which has been badly repaired which could put you or
02:10your family at risk and I recommend for doing that you check out Car Vertical.
02:14So I did a vehicle history check on this particular car and thankfully it came
02:19back completely clean. However there are plenty of used cars out there with
02:23problems. So look here's an example of a car on Car Vertical that has come up as
02:27having previous damage and the good thing about Car Vertical is that you can
02:31actually look at some of the damage photos. I mean look at that! So you can
02:37see the kind of damage that has been done to a car that you may be thinking
02:41of buying that you had no idea was ever damaged. So if you're thinking about
02:45buying a used car make sure you check out Car Vertical. I'll put a link to
02:49their website in the description and in the pinned comment. Anyway let's get on
02:54with the review. So what do you get for your extra money over the standard CLK 63?
02:57Obviously a massively uprated engine with stacks more horsepower right?
03:02Well no actually you don't. It's pretty much the same 6.2 litre naturally
03:07aspirated V8. All Mercedes did was tweak the inlet, the exhaust and the ECU and
03:13they've increased horsepower from 480 in the standard car to 507 here in the
03:19black series. So not a massive gain at all. Torque's the same as well 630
03:25Newton meters. Now this engine has been hand built by a chap called Sandro Pierca
03:31I think. Anyway we'll find out what his handiwork is like later on because I'm going to
03:36launch this thing. You see it's supposed to do 0-60 in 4.3 seconds but does it
03:42really? I'm going to find out. I'm also going to talk you through some of the
03:45things to look out for if you're buying one of these cars or just the normal CLK
03:4863 in terms of reliability and stuff like that. But before we go further let's
03:53just check out something else to do with this engine and the changes they made to
03:56it. The exhaust. Now one of the great things about cars back in 2008 is that
04:00they weren't fitted with petrol particulate filters so you got to
04:03experience the full aural delights of their exhaust system. So let's have a
04:08listen to this black series. Go on, start it up.
04:14Give it some revs.
04:22Okay so that's interesting. So while it sounds great, still like modern cars this
04:28one has a soft limiter. So when you're stationary and you want to experience
04:33the noise of that beautiful naturally aspirated V8, you can't. You can only rev it to
04:40like 3,000 rpm but even then it does still sound good. So let's hear it again.
04:44Give it some more revs. Right that's enough because it hasn't got a petrol
04:52particulate filter. I'm probably getting poisoned right now. As well as the tweaks
04:56to the exhaust and the engine, MG also tweaked the black series gearbox. Now
05:00it's the same seven speed torque converter auto that you got in the
05:03normal CLK 63 but they reprogrammed it slightly to make it give better, faster
05:08and more responsive shifts. But we'll find out a bit more about that when
05:12actually drive the thing. Another change they made was to give it this curious
05:15gear selector. So rather than the normal like big lever you've got this small
05:19little knob that's made out of solid aluminium and it's quite stiff.
05:25It's enough in the endo. You're probably thinking that a mild tweak to the engine,
05:30the exhaust and the gearbox certainly don't warrant a £30,000 premium over
05:35the standard CLK back in the day and no it doesn't. But then Mercedes did make
05:40quite a few of the changes and some substantial ones to the chassis. So this
05:44car is fitted with a rated coilover suspension so it's got new springs, it's
05:48got new dampers with bump and rebound so they're adjustable if you can be
05:52bothered to adjust them. You also get a limited slip differential on the rear
05:56axle and AMG even widened the car's track so they've increased the width
06:00between the wheels on the rear axle by 66 millimetres and 75 millimetres on the
06:06front to improve cornering. That brings on to the styling changes over the
06:10standard CLK 63 because the widened track means that Mercedes had to fit
06:16this car with some blistered wheel arches and that's what really makes this
06:20car stand out. I love just how aggressive this car looks from the front. They also
06:26gave it a redesigned more aggressive bumper and look we've got some carbon
06:30fibre bits here over these air intakes which are actually real, there's no
06:35fakery there. There's some more carbon fibre here at the back so this boot lip
06:40spoiler and this new rear diffuser, lovely. They've also tweaked the rear
06:45bumper as well and the all-important black series there just on the AMG badge.
06:49It is quite subtle. Finally at the sides apart from the obvious blistered wheel
06:54arches the only major change really are these upgraded forged alloy wheels, 19
07:01inches in diameter which was considered big back in 2008. Oh by the way don't you
07:07just love this about the CLK, the way you have these frameless windows and
07:11frameless doors. Look at, I can't get out, do it that way. See frameless doors and windows, it's just so cool when you have the
07:18windows down. It's got a great silhouette this car hasn't it. Here on the inside
07:23the most obvious change over the standard CLK 63 are these glorious
07:27bucket seats. They are wonderful however they are quite body-hugging which is
07:32great when you're going around corners quickly but not ideal if you're a little
07:35bit large in size because you probably won't fit in them. If you can fit it in
07:39them they are actually very comfortable. Another major change which I like is the
07:43addition of lots of carbon fibre especially on the door cards. Look at
07:46that it's got the AMG logo embossed in it as well, it's really cool. Then there's this
07:51steering wheel which can't quite decide what shape it is so it's like normal
07:56steering wheel round at the top it goes a bit squarely at the sides and yeah and
08:01then it's got a flattish bottom. Hmm another thing I'm not sure about is this
08:07look so a high-performance car like this with a high revving V8 you know it
08:11redlines over 7,000 rpm but for some reason the rev counter is only the same
08:16size as the clock so Mercedes thinks it's just as important for you to know
08:20the precise time as it does your engine speed. Hmm I'm not convinced about that.
08:27I'm convinced about the little bit of badge we've got here black series there
08:30it's nice having that but then there's a stop start button down here. Yeah it
08:35doesn't work on this car I don't know if it's this car in particular or whether
08:37it worked or not look you press it nothing happens look you have to turn
08:41the key. What's that all about? Also what are all these blank switches about? This is a
08:50hundred thousand pound car and there's loads of blank switches there. What am I
08:56missing out on? I don't know maybe it's stuff like heating and cooling for the
09:00seats because obviously you don't get that with these buckets but it just
09:03looks so cheap in such an expensive car. Then there's the fact that back in 2008
09:09the interior quality of Mercedes wasn't exactly the best yeah the squidgy
09:13materials but bits like these climate control buttons are just very cheap
09:17feeling and I'm not even going to mention the satellite navigation system
09:21because it's a 2008 satellite navigation system so it's pointless nowadays. And
09:26then there's the fact that Mercedes used to use foot operated parking brakes look
09:31got a foot operated parking brake there's an extra pedal in here but
09:35that's not as annoying as the driving position because for some reason in this
09:39right-hand drive car the the same position is just so offset. So I'm
09:43sitting so far right of the steering wheel look look if I do this that's the
09:49center of my chest so you're twisted that way the pedals are twisted that way
09:53so you're kind of like playing a game of twister while you're driving along in
09:57your 500 horsepower spiky sports car. What's that all about? I also want to know what
10:04AMG was thinking when they decided to remove the CLK's rear seats. Now you're
10:10probably thinking Matt it's obvious this is a lightweight special they've done
10:14that to reduce the weight however it's not a lightweight special this thing
10:17weighs the same 1760 kilos as a standard CLK with rear seats. Now these
10:24areas are recessed so you could use them for putting luggage in there though
10:27it's very hard to get luggage in this car past these bucket seats which don't
10:30move forward very much at all. I also want to know what's going on with the fact
10:35you've got AMG branded floor mats here in the back for literally no one to
10:39appreciate and there's another thing that's a bit annoying in terms of
10:42practicality you see for some reason they've relocated the battery in this
10:45car and it's it's under here right now there are ports where you can connect to
10:50jumpstart it underneath the bonnet in places like that but if you need to
10:52replace the battery because it's dead or old or whatever you have to go see
10:56your Mercedes tech and remove all these bits of trim to get the battery under
10:59there. Great. Another thing that hinders the CLK Black Series practicality is
11:04this big strut brace that runs between the two rear shock towers now they do
11:09help increase the car's structural rigidity and you've got another one at
11:13the front between the two front shock towers. Yeah they're part of the chassis
11:16upgrades I forgot to mention earlier. Thank you Google.
11:21Anyway, enough of that. What the top search results are let's find out what the top
11:26driving results are because I'm going to take this car for a spin now. Okay finally
11:31time to see what this CLK Black Series is like to drive. The first thing I'm
11:34going to do is...
11:40Do that because the engine is lovely that 6.2 litre naturally aspirated V8
11:47just sings and sings all the way to its 7,000 rpm redline. It is an epic engine
11:55and it makes a real fruity noise as well. Let's do it again.
12:04So much fun. So much fun. But obviously you get that in the normal CLK 63 don't
12:12you? Just with a bit less horsepower. So what is this Black Series in particular
12:16like to drive? Well the first thing is that even though it's got stiffer
12:22suspension it doesn't actually feel any stiffer. In fact it feels better over
12:26bumps than the standard car. That often is usually the way with uprated
12:30suspension. It just deals with bumps better. It just does and the way this
12:34one's been set up is really really nice. The interesting thing about this Black
12:39Series is that when AMG originally conceived it they wanted it to be their
12:43version of the Porsche 911 GT3. So does it feel as sporty to drive as a 911 GT3 of a
12:51similar era? Well here comes my first corner. We are going to find out.
13:01I tell you what the front end's pretty good on this. Much better than it would
13:05be on a normal CLK 63. But Porsche 911 GT3? Not so much.
13:15It's really good at getting its power down. I thought it was going to be struggling. I'd
13:21read reports about this being a bit of a tail happy monster and that the traction
13:25control wouldn't really help you out much. But this is doing fine and I'm
13:30quite surprised by the steering. I thought it'd be awful but it's not.
13:34It may be offset and a little bit uncomfortable but it's got a nice weight
13:39to it and it's really responsive. You know it does feel like an aggressive
13:46sporty car yet on the flip side if you just dial it back a bit and you want to
13:50cruise it's not annoying in any way shape or form. You can easily daily this
13:55thing as long as you can put up with the fuel consumption which is going to be
13:59around 80 miles to the gallon. Well if you can afford this car this
14:05hundred thousand pound car you probably don't care and you're probably just
14:08going to leave it in the garage anyway appreciating. Anyway I'm going to put the
14:11gearbox into manual mode and see how it is. Oh there we go.
14:18Pulling away there the traction control did have to intervene and it's totally
14:24dry. Oh yeah and do you know what I take it all back. When you're in lower
14:29gears and in manual and you haven't got the slushy automatic gearbox doing its
14:34own thing, yes it does break traction pretty easily and it's interesting. In
14:40fact I'm going to do it again. How the stability control seems to like pause
14:48for a bit. It lets the wheel spin up a bit and it's like wakes up goes oh am I
14:52supposed to do something. All right I'll just tell the power now. By which point
14:57the car's already stepped out slightly. I'm going to do it again actually. Let's get into
15:02first gear. There we go. Oh I tell you what in manual mode the
15:12gearbox isn't as slow as I thought it would be. It's actually quite quick on
15:17the upshifts. I mean it's no dual clutch system but it's actually pretty
15:22decent. In a moment I'm going to launch this car to see how quick it is from 0 to 60
15:26miles an hour but before I do I thought I'd talk you through some of the
15:28potential problems you could have if you're looking to buy one of these cars.
15:32So certain things to look out for for the CLK black series or just the normal
15:35CLK 63. Let's start with this engine. Now it's normally very very strong and
15:40reliable but they can suffer occasionally with problems with the
15:43head bolts and it's usually the head bolts at the back of the engine which
15:46can corrode due to fluid leaks and then fluid can get into the engine and cause
15:51a hydraulic lock which will just right off the engine entirely. Another thing
15:55you might find is that when you start the car you can get the odd rattle and
15:58that can be the cam chain tensioner is failing. It's not a big deal so you could
16:02get that repaired. Another thing to watch out for is juddering from the gearbox.
16:06The changes should actually be very smooth so if they're not it could be a
16:10warning sign. Now what you should do when you're on your test drive is do a few
16:14manual down changes to make sure it doesn't judder because that's when
16:16they'll really show up. The droplinks and bushings for the anti-roll bars can
16:21wear out and a telltale sign is knocking when you go over a bump. Don't worry
16:25though it's not the most expensive fix in the world. Check the windows go up and
16:30down properly and that when you open and close the doors they do this little
16:34thing where they go back underneath the roof line like that. Also just give them a bit of
16:39a hit and make sure they don't rattle. While the CLK did get anti-corrosion
16:44protection from the factory it can still rust and the places to look out
16:47for are the boot lid just under here, the rear wheel arches, the front wheel arches,
16:53the lower parts of the doors and the wings. The final thing to check is that
16:57if you hear weird clicking sound when you turn the ignition on it could be
17:01that the stepper motor for the air conditioning has failed and that's a
17:04real pain because to replace it you have to remove the whole dash. Finally then
17:08let's see how quick this thing is really from 0 to 60 miles an hour. It's supposed to do
17:114.3 seconds but we'll find out with my specialist timing gear up here. I'm
17:15going to launch it. Let's do it. A little bit of tyre spin. We're off though.
17:21Whoa that's good even though the wheels were spinning a bit at the beginning.
17:26Did 0 to 60 in 4.6 seconds. I'll take that.