Ve haf vays of making you faster

Ve haf vays of making you faster

Mega-power V12s, F1 safety cars, pimped SLs, bulletproof G-Wagens – welcome to AMG, Merc’s in-house skunk-werkes. By Ben Barry

Photography: Greg White

It’s the middle of a cold German winter, months beforeGeorg Kacher has driven the Mercedes AMG SLS, and I’m nosing around a car park outside AMG’s Affalterbach headquarters, wondering what on Earth a camouflaged Aston V8 and Ferrari 599 are doing there, when a truck pulls up and unloads, quite publicly, the answer: a heavily disguised mule of the SLS, Merc’s Rs 95 lakh rival for Aston, Ferrari et al.

Development is clearly reaching its zenith, the engineers focused on honing a car whose essential specifications are already set in stone. It’s a milestone for AMG – to be on the brink of launching a car of its own design, powered by a V8 engineered and built in-house. Doubly so when you consider that, even in the 1980s, it was largely known as an unofficial Mercedes tuner, even if the firm had already achieved significant motorsport success.

When Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher launched the company in 1967 (their initials, plus Aufrecht’s birthplace, Grossaspach, are the A, M and G), things were even more humble: tuned engines were tested to destruction in a gravel pit under a shed.

Things are more sophisticated in 2009, and we’re invited inside by Alex Weber (‘half engineer, half accountant’) to see just how far AMG has come. Mercedes acquired 51% of the company in 1991, taking total ownership in 2005, and today there are four basic sub-divisions to the empire – the main business of building engines and creating mass-market cars; the Accessories department; the Performance Studio, which deals with bespoke alterations to customer cars; and, finally, the Driving Academy.

Any AMG owner, no matter how old their car, can see most of what we’re seeing today, so long as they can provide an AMG chassis number. Try to fob off Affalterbach with a plain A-class VIN and you’ll be politely turned away.

Weber leads us first to the engine test department (no shed), where, behind a 5cm thick shield of glass, a V12 lies. Chaotically sprouting wires and hooked up to various monitors, it looks like a Robocop torso on life support. Overhead, water sprinklers lurk, just in case the pistons make a run for it or the ECU cooks.

‘Every engine we produce gets a running-in period here,’ explains Weber. ‘We simulate hot and cold conditions, collect 120 different data and, when all of our seven testbeds are in use, generate enough electricity to sell it back to the Affalterbach authorities.’

It takes 30 minutes to set-up each engine and, once warmed through, each spends around 1.5 hours on the rig with one minute at full throttle, full load – equivalent to 186mph for the 6.0-litre bi-turbo V12 that’s restrained before us in this bhp lunatic asylum.

Today, however, photographer Greg White wants to do a long exposure shot to capture the engine’s glowing red manifolds. How many minutes can we run this engine at full load for, I ask? ‘As long as you like,’ comes the reply.

The engine slowly cranks up, and slips through its five ratios with the menacing, slightly distant drone of fighter bombers, the manifolds quickly gaining an almost imperceptible orange tint. As the engine reaches maximum revs, the operator sits impassive, ear defenders on, fingers poised above keyboard. Even standing behind our safety screen, the V12’s frenetic blare sounds unsustainable and I wince as the manifolds glow a molten, liquid-looking red.

 

AMG’s first winner: a tuned 6.8-litre 300SEL. Only this is a replica because AMG’s founders couldn’t afford to turn down an offer on the original. It was sold for aircraft tyre testing	No, not bobbins for contrast leather stitching but reams and reams of colour-coded wiring

We get the shot, the V12 slowly winds down and we move on to the engine assembly rooms, where 60 mechanics build 20,000 engines per year, each taking an average of five hours to complete. V8s are downstairs, but we’re led first upstairs to the V12s, where engines for the 65 range (S, SL and CL) and the Maybach S are assembled on one side of the room, those for the SLR McLaren supercar on the other.

The place is immaculate, meticulously organised, and boasts a distinctively spare spectrum of black, orange, silver and white. Black trays lie on silver trolleys; black and orange power tools dangle from the ceiling on orange extension cables; exhaust manifolds are hoisted above polished white tiling.

Each engine is built by one mechanic, a throwback to AMG’s motorsport heritage.

‘In racing we try to avoid the transition of responsibility,’ explains Weber. ‘That is why we have the one man, one engine philosophy.’

In other words, if anything goes wrong, AMG knows exactly who to fire. And on this cutting-edge production line, where a computer workstation instructs mechanics on the exact order of assembly, and records exactly when components are installed, the arse-whipping can be targeted with Germanic precision. Unsurprising, then, that Burkhard Kr¸ger eyes me with suspicion when I arrive to ‘help’ build his V12.

Kr¸ger’s in his 50s and has worked at AMG for eight years. He ‘drove an AMG car once, but a long time ago’, so I feel embarrassingly privileged to describe his engine’s characteristics in the outrageous SL65 Black Series – the thump when the twin turbochargers kick in, the roar of boost under heavy acceleration. Kr¸ger smiles at the picture I’m painting, a slightly distant look in his eyes. It’s as if I’m describing the outside world to a man locked in a windowless room.

But only he can tell me how to put a V12 together. The computer screen is colour-coded, split into blue (not done) yellow (do it next), and green (done). I watch as Kr¸ger installs jets to spray oil from beneath each piston for both cooling and lubrication. He slides tools into position from overhead, and scans the parts’ matrix codes as he works, letting his automated minder know exactly what he’s up to.
The computer says it’s my bit next. I put on white gloves, organise the crankshaft bearings in order of tolerances (well, in order of red, yellow and blue), and slot them painstakingly, agonisingly in place. ‘Yes,’ says Kr¸ger. ‘Correct.’

 

An unfamiliar, majestic sense of mechanical achievement swells from deep inside as Weber ushers us downstairs to the V8s. I turn for one last glimpse of ‘my’ engine, only to catch Kr¸ger undoing my craftsmanship and re-scanning the components. Bastard!

The V8 room is bigger, busier, staffed by a younger crowd and, with Pink blaring from a radio, noisier too. ‘This is the bad boy engine,’ laughs Weber. ‘The younger guys tend to work here. We do flexi-time; the older guys with families start and finish early on the V12s, while the younger V8 guys get in late and work late too.’

Seems like a nice place to toil. The final splinters of sunlight strafe through large windows, rolling hillsides and terracotta roofs stretch into the distance and we’re surrounded by quite possibly the best mass-produced engine on sale – the 6.2-litre that AMG engineered, with its Doc Martens pistons, fat torque and soaring revs.

 

It might become a grind, I suppose, but you could always transfer to the Performance Studio if you need a more unconventional workload. During our visit, a third Formula One safety car is being built; a C63 sits stripped of all innards, ready to receiveRs 6.3 lakh of mods, and liquorice-like reams of additional wiring; an SL65 has been flown in from Kuwait; and seven G-Wagens are in various states of armour-plating.

 

‘The typical spend is 10-15% of the purchase price,’ says Weber, ‘but it can be much more, and we will deal with older cars. We can do anything, no matter about taste, but it is definitely not just Pimp My Ride for the very wealthy.’

With that he leads us directly to the Middle Eastern SL65. It’s had an extra Rs 95 lakh added to the original Rs 1.2 crore purchase price. There’s new baby blue quilted leather; a tonneau cover wrapped in cowskin; cameras front and rear to record God knows what; and the bodywork and wheels (and door shuts, engine bay and boot) are entirely resprayed in Aqua Marine metallic that sparkles with a gold flip. ‘There is 300g of real gold in the paint,’ explains Weber.

Nothing beats the G-Wagens, though. Some are XXL versions extended by hearse and limo specialist Binz. ‘We re-finish all the interiors,’ reveals Weber, one having diamond-quilted black leather to replace both rooflining and carpet. Others are in for the highest standard of armour-plating – B7 for a 7.62mm bullet. ‘You can spot the armoured cars because of the double rear door – a single door would be too heavy for the hinges,’ points out Weber.

So, single door, rocket launchers at the ready. Double door, hold your fire.
Weber speculates that oil companies may have ordered the G-Wagens, but he doesn’t know for sure – none of the ground-level employees are told just in case there’s an inside man.

To think that all this – engines, motorsport success, bulletproofing, Pimp My Ride for the very wealthy – has grown from two men tweaking engines in a shed is already pretty impressive. What comes next – the AMG-engineered SLS supercar – takes AMG into a whole new league.