Ola Calenias, chief executive of Mercedes-Benz, acknowledged that the carmaker’s supervisory board must have been “drunk” when it decided to approve the AMG One Hypercar for production.
The German carmaker unveiled the first car at the 2017 Frankfurt Auto Show. It made headlines because it featured a 1.6-liter turbocharged V6, a motor-generator unit-kinetic motor, a Formula One-powered hybrid powertrain using a motor-generator. Unit-head motor, and two electric motors on the front axle. After all, the car is expected to have more than 1,000 hp.
While all of these specifications sound great on paper, the AMG One has proven to be extremely difficult to get on the road. It has been delayed on many occasions and customer delivery has not yet begun.
Read more: Mercedes-AMG One Hypercar to begin production in mid-2022
“The team at AMG and [AMG] The High Performance Powertrain Formula 1 arm came to us about four years ago and said ‘we got a great idea, let’s put a Formula 1 engine in a road car’, said Calenius. Autocar In a recent interview. “I have to go back to check the meeting minutes, but I’m sure we were drunk when we said yes.”
One problem that Mercedes had to overcome was the availability of powertrains to comply with WLTP emissions standards, which required the use of petrol particulate filters.
Speaking to media members about the car in Monaco, Calenias added that the automaker had news of an announcement about the AMG One “within a few weeks”. Betina Fetzer, head of marketing for the carmaker, also said Autocar That Mercedes will share a “very honest documentary” about the progress of the project.
Only 275 instances of the Mercedes-AMG One are tied for production, each costing about € 2.27 million ($ 2.4 million).
