Production of the long-awaited 1049bhp Mercedes-AMG One, dubbed a Formula 1 car for the road, has begun in the UK, with first customer deliveries earmarked for later this year.
The hardcore coupé, priced at $2.75 million (£2.2m), is the most potent Mercedes-AMG road car yet, combining a modified version of the firm’s turbocharged 1.6-litre V6 grand prix engine with four electric motors.
With a top speed restricted to 219mph, it also becomes the brand’s fastest production car, eclipsing the 214mph-capable Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR from 24 years ago
Limited to a run of just 275 units, all of which are already accounted for, the hypercar will be built by hand in Coventry, with its turbocharged 1.6-litre V6 grand prix engine being put together in Brixworth by the same specialists who build the F1 team's powertrain. This follows the famous Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, which was also built in the UK, at Woking, between 2003 and 2009.
Mercedes says more than 50 specialists will work on each One, on 16 assembly stations, with the final stage marked by a test driver taking the car around a "nearby" proving ground. It will then be transported to the Mercedes‑AMG headquarters in Affalterbach, where it will be handed over the lucky owner.
Philipp Schiemer, Mercedes‑AMG chairman, said: "The Mercedes‑AMG One is the most ambitious project we have ever undertaken - from development to production. It marks another high point in Mercedes‑AMG's successful strategic development towards an electrified 'Future of Driving Performance'.
"The production of the exclusive small series is a truly unique challenge."
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Mercedes F1 team should double its efforts to run at the top. The current pale performance would do harm to Mercedes-AMG One sales, since it is now Mercedes-AMG Three.
Performance dtats a bit underwhelming? I expected more from Mercedes' race car TBH, I'm sure it handles like a race car though. The top speed is somehow very low too, presumably due to the gear ratios?
For something well over 1000hp, with the instant thrust of electric motors, that is practically a race car the road I was expecting better performance figures!
Yes, the headline statistics look pedestrian given the price and the abilities of cheaper high-performance cars currently in production.
It's a lot of money for a V6. The handling and driving dynamics will need to be stellar to justify the price and the hype. Then again, all of the production output has already been allocated.
I am sure that we won't be seeing any on of these cars on UK public roads - but that's also true of many other cars that Autocar covers.
And it looks that you can get in and out of the car without a team of technicians lifting you. Big difference to the Valkyrie!
And I bet this is production ready yet the Valkyrie seems to still be getting development hours spent on it. Very few real-world displays of the car so far and stories of the Aston Martin F1 team having to send out technicians to get it running. That was even reported in their quarterly results, apparently.
Now what we need is a video of someone from Autocar (or Carfection) driving one.
Wow, you're dull. Did you get fired from Aston Martin or something?
But it's true Bob Cat Brian. The Valkyrie isn't designed to have actual normal humans in it (or getting in and out of it) whereas this is at least capable of being driven by people who aren't jockies! And I'd wager it's going to have been endurance tested for more hours than Aston Martin has done with every car it's released in the past five years combined.
What either car is like to get in or out of, will be irrelavent to most owners. For most, all that exotic engineering will just sit in airconditioned storage, waiting for the value to rise.
What a waste...
The Valkyrie looks out of this world though. This AMG is ugly. That matters. No one's going to do the grocery shop in either car after all.
There all sold, not all will be Car Bunnies sitting in a Garage waiting for some desperado with more money than sense, to come along and pay way over what it's worth, your also alluding that those who buy them aren't car mad like we are, I am the stage where I don't care what it costs, what it looks like, if they like it that fine, not harming anyone, they've just bought what they like, just like we do but on a much much lower scale.