FearLess Posted March 22, 2019 Posted March 22, 2019 The firm’s continuing ability to transform practically any of Mercedes’ relatively ordinary cars into bona fide road and track performance weapons – often to class-leading effect – continues to be the foundation of its success. Meanwhile, the brand’s association with a certain five-time Formula 1 world champion and his AMG-liveried racing car must also have played its part. Arguably of even greater significance than both, though, is the fact that, within the past 10 years, Mercedes-AMG has turned its hand to developing its very own sports cars. The SLS was the first such creation, first appearing in 2009 with its dramatic 300SL-style gullwing doors and naturally aspirated 6.2 V8 – and its successor, the Mercedes-AMG GT, arrived in 2014 to continue the two-seater sporting theme. Neither was derived from an existing Mercedes model; both were intended to represent the wider reaches of what Affalterbach can achieve when presented with a blank canvas and a generous R&D budget; and both have proved good enough to convince Mercedes’ top brass that AMG should even be involved in the engineering of non-AMG car lines. However, AMG’s third in-house model, and subject of this week’s road test, is a different kettle of fish for several reasons. Welcome, then, to the imposing of stature and convoluted of name Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé, a four-seat sporting GT designed to leave more than a whiff of Affalterbach on the turf of cars as different as the Porsche Panamera and Bentley Continental GT. Being AMG’s first stand-alone model with four seats, this car should broaden the company’s model portfolio quite a bit – but if it’s a proper GT car, it’ll be necessarily different from the SLS and GT that have preceded it. Read on to find out exactly how different that means. Price £121,350 Power 577bhp Torque 590lb ft 0-60mph 3.3sec 30-70mph in fourth 4.5sec Fuel economy 21.7mpg CO2 emissions 256g/km 70-0mph 45.3m
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