New Mercedes-AMG C53 Spied Hiding Panamericana Grille

Back in February, spy photographers caught a glimpse of a camouflaged Mercedes-Benz C-Class. Is wasn’t a typical sedan, however, as it was festooned with massive brakes and the front end camouflage we usually see on models concealing a Panamericana grille. It didn’t look super aggressive though, so our sources speculated it could be an AMG C53 model.
 

Now we have a new set of spy photos of a different prototype, and the assessment is the same. The prototype isn’t the same however, as we see different camo coverings for the grille and looking close, we can barely make out a Panamericana grille hiding beneath it. This prototype also has a different rear fascia, fitted with quad exhaust outlets as we’d expect to find on an AMG-spec C-Class. They look a bit janky, but considering the placeholder taillights just above and the mismatched wheels, this particular test vehicle is far from production-spec.
 

Could this be a C63 instead of a lower-level C53? The tires do look a bit wider, and there are some strange whisker spoilers up front that are interesting. However, our sources on this particular car tell us it definitely had the sound of a four-cylinder engine. That almost certainly means a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-pot is under the hood, possibly pulled from the AMG A45 S where it makes 416 horsepower (310 kilowatts). It would be a modest upgrade from the current C43’s 385-hp (287 kW) twin-turbo V6, without encroaching too much on the V8 punch emanating from the C63.
 

Unfortunately, we still have a long wait ahead of us to see if our guesstimates are correct. We haven’t even seen the new C-Class revealed, which should come before the end of 2020. That means we likely won’t see AMG models revealed until well into 2021.