And when you walk up to the Mercedes-Benz C 63 AMG Estate with those same metaphors in mind as you open the door, alight, slip behind the steering wheel, shut the door, fasten your seat belt, turn the key and the whole voluminous cabin roars to life... you feel deep down you may be in for some unexpected surprises.

"When driven with some verve it's positive, responsive and willing to comply with your inputs."

Yup, suddenly you realise something else is afoot, the 6.3-litre quadcam AMG motor idling like a veritable WWII Hurricane fighter plane before taxiing. In fact, once you're underway, the thing is not far off one of them either with 336kW and 600Nm of output energy being churned at the rear wheels and the tacho needle surging to the 7300rpm redline.

Still not that impressed? Well how about the zero-to-100 blast in 5.4 seconds at Reef altitudes; or the 13.4 seconds it took to nail the quarter mile with an exit speed of 174km/h?

Yes even your wide-eyed Dachshund, which you left in the voluminous 1500 litre rear luggage compartment safely ensconced in the collapsible shopping crate under the safe retaining net, still doesn't know what really happened over that brief but sonorous interlude. And there is a lot of space in that 2.82m long area between the tailgate and front passenger foot-well.

On closer examination to the untrained eye there are styling differences that will not be traditionally associated with everyday Estate — such as the bonnet with power domes, AMG radiator grille, flared front wings, aggressive looking alloy wheels, AMG rear apron with black diffusor insert and the two ominous looking chromed AMG exhausts with twin pipes.

Inside the cabin are smart AMG sports seats with integrated head restraints, three-spoke performance steering wheel with flattened lower section, as well as the AMG-specific instrument cluster with AMG main menu. Naturally an Estate also has to double as a load hauler.

To this end, two bag hooks and four rings for anchoring loads are included as are stowage compartments with net covers and that collapsible shopping crate with combined luggage cover and that retaining net measuring around 1.80m long and up to 1.20m wide.

That might please our significant others, but what we’re really interested in lies beneath that power-domed bonnet.

Merc's path to achieving performance is not much in vogue at present — it's all about downsizing and turbo-charging nowadays. For the present, AMG has stuck with the large 'V' multi-cylinder route that in fact is not conducive to keeping fuel consumption and unwanted gas emissions down — but that explosive responsiveness as result must be one of the 63’s most salient features.

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