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Spyshots: 2019 Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 Looks at Home at the Nurburgring

The Mercedes-Benz M-Class never ceased being a good vehicle, but you can't help feeling that a replacement for this current version - the one that also marked the switch to the GLE monicker - is long overdue.
2019 Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 14 photos
Photo: Wilco Blok
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Climb into an Audi Q7 - which is a two-year-old model itself now - and then do the same with a Mercedes-Benz GLE, and you'll feel like you've just discovered a time machine. One that can only take you back about six to seven years to a time when having a keypad on the dashboard was still considered acceptable.

The perceived age of the GLE has been helped by the new Mercedes-Benz models as well, which are flaunting a very clean and modern design both inside and out. That makes the prospect of this all-new GLE generation all the more exciting, especially since the images we've seen so far seem to suggest the SUV is going to be considerably sleeker than the outgoing model.

What we have here is the AMG version of the four-by-four pacing the streets around the famous German track we know as Nurburgring, Nordschleife, the Green Hell, or just simply, the 'Ring. Performance SUVs have never been a particularly sensible market niche, but the 2019 Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 looks like it might be one of those who can pull it off.

We can't say if it's the camouflage or the new design sitting on the MHA (Modular High Architecture) platform, but the new GLE appears to be much sportier than its predecessor. The reversed Panamericana grille does half the job, with the rest being taken care of by the squatted stance and the (there's no other way to put it) less SUVish shape of the entire car.

If we could peek under the prototype's hood, we'd see the 4.0-liter V8 engine with either 571 or 612 hp, depending on whether this is a standard GLE 63 or the S version. Digging deeper we'd come across the nine-speed automatic transmission as well as the AMGiffied 4MATIC all-wheel-drive system.

These specs, along with a few weight savings over the current model, should be enough to give the 2019 Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 a 0-60 mph sprint time below the four seconds mark. Twenty years ago that would have put most supercars to shame, but now it's something a mid-sized SUV can do. It's not what they refer to when they say we live in a crazy world, but it might as well be.

The AMG badge should make its way on a slightly less powerful version as well - branded either "50" or "55" - that will use a hybrid system based on an inline-six turbo engine. We can't tell if this is it, but since there's no sticker on the SUV signaling it's a hybrid, it probably isn't.

We're only a few months away from the release of the new Mercedes-Benz GLE which should arrive early next year. In typical Mercedes fashion, however, the AMG version will follow sometime later the same year, joined shortly after by the GLE Coupe version as well.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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