AMG GT
You remember the AMG GT. Super long bonnet, cabin parked on the back axle behind growling V8, fairly frenetic approach to life. Yeah, that one. Well, the badge is back but the car has changed. No longer a supercar, now a super GT. There are two seats in the back and a bigger boot.
Customer demand apparently. I ask one of the AMG execs if owners were threatening to go off and buy Porsche 911s. There’s a rueful non-denial. So it’s returned as a Germanic alternative to the Aston Martin DB12 and Ferrari Roma. Or a Porsche 911 Turbo of course. Think it’s fighting above its weight? In terms of badge prestige, we agree. On other parameters, it has the measure of them.
Very little is carried over from the first gen. The chassis architecture is all new and shared with the SL, but Mercedes is at pains to point out this is not an SL with a fixed roof and has been developed entirely separately. That car hasn’t been very happily received, this is far more fluent and capable – not only than the SL, but also its aggressive and edgy predecessor.
It’s a handsome thing, skilfully drawn. The bonnet still looks long, but the driver is now sited some 200mm further forward than before. It’s also grown: 180mm longer, 70mm taller. That’s created room for the (optional) back seats and a 321-litre boot. It looks bigger, and can be bigger, 675 litres with the seats folded. It’s almost a shooting brake. The rear seats are apparently fine for people ‘up to 1.5m’ tall. Translation: preteen kids with all the flexibility that entails.
No hybrid here, this uses the familiar 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 in two states of tune: a GT 55 with 469bhp (unlikely to come to the UK) and a GT 63 with 577bhp courtesy of higher turbo boost pressure, better airflow and modified engine software. Further down the line expect to see a GT 63 e-Performance that uses the same plug-in hybrid tech as the 831bhp GT 63 four-door.
It’s slathered in tech. It’s four-wheel-drive with four-wheel-steer, there’s active aero via a five position pop-up wing and a dropdown underbody panel behind the front splitter, plus six driving modes and an electronic differential on the rear axle. If that wasn’t enough AMG has also ditched anti-roll bars in favour of hydraulic cross-linked dampers – the same tech McLaren fits to the 750S (see p44). Pressure through the system not only varies suspension stiffness, but can act very fast to resist roll through corners.
That works beautifully. AMG wanted the new GT to be eas
