Mercedes is getting serious with AMG, and by “serious,” I mean “slapping its badge on anything that moves.” As such, I’m inclined to believe this report that the in-house performance arm will make a mid-engine sports car to rival the Porsche Cayman. Well, to be honest, I don’t have to have any great reason to believe it. I could just use this today.
The report comes from Autocar, saying there’ll be a little sibling to the Project One under the authoritative headline “Mercedes-AMG to launch Porsche 718 Cayman rival.” Not a lot of doubt in that headline.
As for the report itself, it cites no named sources, and all we have to go on is this:
A senior Mercedes-Benz manager, when asked about AMG’s proposed plans, said: “A lot of thought has gone into how Mercedes-AMG can better leverage its success in motorsport, particularly Formula 1 and endurance racing. One idea is a sports car that is relatively attainable financially and ideally suited to track day running. But it is just an idea and not a committed project right now.”
The source goes on to say that it would make “great sense” from a marketing perspective, but quickly casts doubt on if it would work financially. All of which points more to the ‘not gonna happen’ side of the scales than anything else. Saying something is “just an idea” isn’t the strongest footing in the automotive industry.
But you know what, a lot is going on right now, and I’m just going to let this fantasy rock around in my brain for another few minutes. Man, what if AMG jammed M-B’s new 400-horsepower straight-six in the back of something. Yeah. That’d be the shit.