2026 Mercedes-AMG E53 Hybrid Wagon First Look: Whoa, Another New Performance Estate!

When it comes to high-end European cars, wagon spin-offs of popular sedans are seeing a bit of a revival. There is Audi with its RS6 Avant making it to America, and BMW with the M5 Touring. Thing is, it's not like suddenly it is Mercedes-Benz’s turn to go touring—because Benz hasn't really left the space in decades. It's long offered the long-roof E-Class here, and even though lately that's meant a sort of Subaru-ification to "All Terrain" guise for the regular E450 model, AMG has kept the hot-wagon flame alive with the E63 wagon. Now comes a surprise—at least to us, who are expecting the newest-generation E-Class, our 2025 Car of the Year, to sprout a V-8-powered E63 S Performance wagon, but not this, a new E53 Hybrid wagon. The E53 joins the E53 Hybrid sedan already on sale and marks a new landing spot between the E450 All Terrain and the E63 replacement we're still waiting on in Benz's wagon lineup.

For those not in the know with Mercedes naming conventions, the E450 is powered by a turbocharged inline-six with mild hybrid tech—and that applies to both the E450 sedan as well as the E450 All Terrain wagon. (There is a lesser E350 model with a four-cylinder engine underhood, but it only comes stateside as the E350 sedan; the E450's the lowest you can go with a wagon.) The E53 builds on the E450's format, sharing six-cylinder motivation but upping the electrification for even more power and performance—so much, in fact, that it comes close to the last-generation (V-8-powered!) E63 S Performance wagon's stats. 

The 2026 E53 Hybrid is actually a plug-in hybrid, or PHEV, and its 3.0-liter turbocharged I-6 makes 443 hp and 413 lb-ft of torque, big steps up from the E450s' 375 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque. AMG piles on with an integrated electric motor providing 161 hp and 354 lb-ft of torque into the nine-speed Speedshift TCT 9G automatic transmission. With a 400-volt battery pack onboard packing 21.2-kWh of usable capacity, the standard combined output of the E53 is 577 hp with a top speed of 155 mph, but when the Race Start is enabled as part of the optional AMG Dynamic Plus package, expect to find an extra 27 hp available for a maximum output of 604 hp (1 pony beyond the old E63's top figure) and a new top speed of 174 mph. This also drops AMG's claimed zero-to-60 mph time from 4.0 seconds in standard mode to 3.8 seconds in Race Start thanks to that additional power.