Mercedes-AMG 2020 review: GLA45, C63 S, E63 S, GT C, G63 | RWD vs AWD on ice

Driving on ice, for 99 per cent of Australians, is entirely, hilariously pointless.
Even if you do find snow in Australia at the height of winter, it’s more than likely you’ll be driving on a heavily salted, heavily graded arterial road through our laughably small alpine regions, with someone enforcing the rules at any entry-point that you MUST carry or put on chains.
So, when we were invited to drive a whole bunch of AMG performance vehicles on ice at New Zealand’s Snow Farm, we thought - sure, it’s going to be a lot of fun, but what’s in it for Aussie readers.
Well, there are some neat learnings about things like winter tyres and realities of driving in such extreme conditions that you’ve probably only seen in movies, but other than that it gave us a chance to pit the RWD likes of the C 63 S and GT C against the 4Matic tech that underpins the GLA 45 and E 63, as well as a short but sweet hill climb in the ridiculous (and gold-wrapped) G 63.
The event:
The event was located atop a mountain on New Zealand’s picturesque South Island at a facility called the Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds, affectionately known as The Snow Farm.
You might have seen the entry to it before if you’ve been skiing in Cardrona. It’s just opposite the climb to the snowfields.
Up top is a series of long flat plateaus (once farms, hence the nickname) that are great for conducting all sorts of vehicle testing.
In fact, Snow Farm is the only location in the southern hemisphere where snow-condition testing can be carried out, while the northern hemisphere is experiencing summer.
We were invited there to take part in the AMG Driving Academy. It’s a new-to-the-southern-hemisphere program where recent AMG buyers can sign up to be shipped across from Australia to drive Benz’s own fleet of vehicles on the ice.
The program is one action-packed day, where instructors brief you on various exercises, then essentially let you loose to experience the cars on your own.
Surprisingly, the program, run every second year (weather permitting), is even reasonably affordable with our contact from Mercedes telling us that punters pay between $4- and $5000 for the pleasure.
A reasonable expense when you consider most of them would have just forked out $130,000 plus for most of the vehicles we had access to.
The exercises were all planned and conducted by experienced race drivers from all over Australia, and consisted of a series of acceleration and brake tests, slaloms, a 'Scandinavian Flick' tutorial, donuts (naturally), and a hill-climb for the G63 to show off its four-wheel drive abilities and sheer brawn.
All of this was topped off with a timed motorkhana in the rear-wheel drive C 63s to test the skills learned throughout the day.
Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel and meals provided.
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