The experience at AMG's new ice-driving school confirmed a suspicion: all-wheel drive doesn't necessarily make cars boring any more.
Not so long ago, whenever all-wheel drive was fitted to a vehicle with even vaguely sporty pretensions, it tended to dull the driving experience.
The problem was, all-wheel-drive systems generally induce understeer in normal driving conditions. Now, even if you don't know what understeer is, you've felt it. Understeer is why an old Corolla handles the way it does, feeling as if it wants to plow straight ahead when rounding corners rather than turn eagerly.
Understeer is fine and safe in a car made only for getting from A to B, but it does not make for fun, responsive, playful or in any way entertaining driving experience. Hence, AWD's reputation for dulling a car's handling.
There are exceptions to this rule, of course; the Subaru STI/Mitsubishi Evo crowd is getting out their pitchforks already. But there's no denying AWD has blunted the handling of many a recent sporty machine: The original Audi R8, the old RS5, and even the Lamborghini Murcielago and last-generation Porsche Turbo suffered in the entertainment department because of all-wheel drive.
If not serving up understeer, performance AWD systems tend to glue a car to the road as if it were driving on rails, which isn't much fun either. Fast cars are supposed to be unruly, rude, a little bit dangerous, but AWD often robs them of all of it.
At a racetrack in Nevada last year, I had the good fortune to test the all-wheel-drive Lamborghini Huracan back-to-back with the rear-wheel-drive version. No question which was better – only the RWD Lambo had me wondering if I could get a $300,000 line of credit.
However, a new generation of AWD systems are finally proving you can have great handling plus all-weather practicality in a single vehicle.
The E63 dances like a ballerina on ice, kicking up plumes of snow.
The Mercedes-AMG E63 S is a 603-horsepower, two-tonne luxury barge that should handle, well, like the great big barge that it is, especially on ice. Yet on frozen Lake Winnipeg, at AMG’s new winter Driving Academy, the E63 danced like a prima ballerina, power sliding in long graceful arcs, launching itself sideways and kicking up a great big cloud of snow in its considerable wake.
It did not only do understeer; it wanted to oversteer and powerslide like it'd just escaped off the set of the next Fast and Furious movie. AWD didn't dull the experience in this AMG. It made it more accessible.
How does it work?
"What's very important," AMG boss Tobias Moers said, "is to have a rear-biased behaviour."
In other words, the all-wheel-drive system has to favour sending power to the rear – rather than front – wheels.
"AMG developed that all-wheel-drive system [in the E63] with its rear-biased torque distribution setup; it's not the standard Mercedes system," Moers said.
Indeed, on a dry piece of pavement, the new E63 behaves much like a rear-drive German muscle car. The AWD system gets out of the way, only stepping in gently to provide a safety net when you run out of traction and/or talent.
Spend two or three days driving on ice next year at the new winter Driving Academy in Gimli and you'll see for yourself. The course runs in January and February with prices ranging from $2,995 to $5,595.
"[AWD] is going to be the standard in the future, that's my perspective," Moers says. "It's only the wild ones – the C63 and AMG GT – which are not all-wheel drive. But the other [AMG] models can move to all-wheel drive."
AMG runs courses at its new winter Drive Academy in Gimli in January and February.
Even AMG's upcoming Project ONE supercar will use an all-wheel-drive system, with the front wheels driven by a pair of electric motors.
BMW's M Division – a staunch advocate of rear-wheel-drive performance cars – has also recently embraced all-wheel drive. The sixth-generation M5 is the first one to use AWD and, despite my initial skepticism, it handles brilliantly, better than the old rear-drive model.
At that car's launch, Frank van Meel, the boss of M, said the decision to go with an AWD system was easy. After driving the first prototype with the M-developed AWD system, he and his team were convinced it was the right way to go. It didn't add much weight, it helped with acceleration, the car still felt rear-driven and AWD would be a major selling point for buyers in colder climates.
The M5's all-wheel-drive system is heavily rear-biased as with AMG's. Unlike the regular BMW 5 Series, the M5's AWD system is controlled by a single computerized brain which also oversees the traction control, ABS, engine, steering and gearbox. It does a remarkably good job of blending all these systems to make this behemoth feel delicate and lithe, putting some nuance back into the handling of M's big sedan.
Even Audi – whose RS performance division specializes in all-wheel-drive machines that handle like they're on rails – has made a riotously fun, eminently driftable little AWD car with the RS3. For a slightly more affordable example, look at Ford's drift-happy Focus RS.
All-wheel drive need not make performance cars boring any more. And that's good news for us here in Canada, because AWD is increasingly becoming a standard feature on all types of cars and SUVs. Nearly 96 per cent of all Mercedes-Benz vehicles offered in this country are all-wheel drive. It hardly bothers selling anything else any more.
Where the prospect of driving a high-horsepower car through winter might once have been an excursive in self-restraint and risk management, with the latest generation of electronically controlled performance AWD systems, it's a non-issue.
Put a set of winter tires on the M5 or E63 or RS3 and you've got yourself a genuine all-season performance car. It might not be such a big deal for drivers in California. Here in Canada, though, that's kind of the holy grail for gearheads, and these cars are likely just a taste of what's to come.
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