Mercedes-AMG go smaller, wilder and more exciting with the raw and insane GT S. Is this the rebirth of their essential sports car that’s been a long time coming?
Story: Jim Gorde
Photography: Sanjay Raikar
It was about 65 years ago that a certain Ferdinand Porsche went up to a company called Daimler with a design for an everyday car. It was, at the time, considered too radical and dismissed by the board. Now this may have been about a certain bug that never went viral until later, but some part of me can’t help but relate these two. Like this was something we could have had those many decades ago. My history is not very accurate (it’s rubbish) and, I must confess, my mind twists words into thoughts best left unsaid until life throws me an opportunity to not just absorb the stuff of dreams but also pour out all of those very thoughts.
This, then, is Mercedes’ answer to the Porsche 911 — engine in the front, gearbox in the back, design exactly where it should be. It’s taken some years, but it’s here now, and we can be happy about that. I certainly am. I’ll get straight to the point — the AMG GT S isn’t your usual German precision machine that sounds deep and delivers numbers as consistently on tarmac as it does on paper. It’s wild, it’s raw, and it’s a Mercedes like you wouldn’t believe! It’s everything you would want; delivering those paper numbers in ways you always wanted but, possibly, didn’t quite receive.
An SLS-replacement it may be, but it’s a completely different car. The cheeky front, the long bonnet, the swoopy passenger cell and the cute little curvy rear convey exactly what it’s about. The smiling face and power domes on the bonnet tell part of the story. There’s no 6.2 6.3-litre massive atmospheric V8 under there. Instead, you get a minuscule 4.0-litre that sits inches away from your knees, hugging two force-feeders tightly in its arms, with the long bonnet and plastic cover shielding the coolant and other fluid containers more than anything else.
With car design today being governed more by pedestrian safety, efficiency and emission norms than much else, the GT S is a breath of fresh air. The almost classic race car-like silhouette, the carbon-fibre twin blades with the ‘V8 BITURBO’ badging, the big wheels with mixed rubber, and clean lines all make the GT S an utterly beautiful and extremely desirable offering. The GT ‘S’, of course, is the more powerful version with 510 PS and 650 Nm, no 462-PS beginner’s stuff here.
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