The Mercedes-AMG GT Concept is a sedan version of the Mercedes-AMG GT, which means that it has four doors. Mercedes insists on calling it a “coupe,” I guess because they like using words wrong, probably because of a sex thing. It barely matters, because it’s really quite striking-looking.
Mercedes-Benz’ press release is subtitled “The Mercedes-AMG GT Concept, a four-door coupe that heralds a further extension of the AMG GT family.”
Sure, we got an early peek at this yesterday, but now we know a lot more about it: it makes 805 horsepower from its hybrid drivetrain, which is derived from the W08 EQ Power+ from the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport Formula 1 car. Mercedes will start using the EQ Power+ name for all performance-oriented future hybrids.
Here’s how Mercedes describes the technical details of the EQ Power+ setup on the Concept:
The performance hybrid system combines a powerful Handcrafted AMG 4.0L V8 biturbo engine with an additional powerful electric motor, ensuring immediate response and offering extraordinarily high performance. A sprint from 0-60 mph takes the AMG GT Concept less than three seconds, demonstrating the performance of a super-sports car.
Maximum driving performance AMG’s primary focus on all projects and is why the AMG GT Concept has a balanced axle load distribution. The fully variable AMG performance 4MATIC+ all-wheel drive system is supported by an electric motor which drives the rear wheels directly and has the effect of an additional booster. Additionally, with torque vectoring, every wheel can be allocated torque individually resulting in a tangible increase in performance.
Mercedes has also released a sizzle video of the car, complete with those laser/tesla coil/alien-scanning-ray sound effects that everybody seems to be using on their videos of cars being hit with intense lights:
Other interesting design details about the AMG GT Concept: it’s a hatchback, which is smart, and much of the lighting uses fiber-optic light pipe technology, something we’ve seen on concept cars for years that never quite makes it to production. This time they call it “nano active fiber technology,” but it seems to be just new versions of fiber optic light pipes.
Note the lack of rear-view mirrors, and the unexpected location of the rear-view cameras, low on the front quarter panel. Rear-view cameras in lieu of mirrors are almost a concept car cliché now, but I suspect there’s lobbying happening as we speak to make them legal one day.
Mercedes claims that the “energy storage unit in the AMG GT Concept is more powerful than conventional hybrid batteries, but at the same time is more compact and lighter,” though no details are given regarding battery-only range, storage capacity, or anything like that. It’s a concept car! Of course everything is better than anything we have now, because concept cars are basically just designer/engineer dreams made briefly and limitedly real.
Still, as far as dreams go, this one is quite striking looking, and a four-door sedan version of the GT is an interesting direction to go.
It’s still not a coupe, though.
(Photos from Geneva by Freddy Hernandez)