Behind the Star
Gary Anderson
Racecars, Supercars and Hypercars
Who needs a thousand-horsepower street car? That’s a fair question, but we might just as well have asked 46 years ago who would need a massive 300SEL sedan capable of racing successfully for 24 hours at Spa-Francorchamps.
We might also ask what racecars, supercars and hypercars have to do with the development of family five-doors, executive conveyances and two-seat roadsters with room for golf clubs in the trunk. In other words, why does Mercedes-Benz Cars, the premier luxury-car company in the world, need a performance division like AMG?
If you were looking for the answer on Sunday, June 11, you could have found it in Montreal, where Mercedes-AMG Petronas took first and second place at the Formula 1 races on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Sure, their cars were among the fastest overall on the track, but just as important, they were also the most reliable and best handling as well. Winning on the track is as much about not having your car break down, spin out of control or run out of fuel before your opponents do, as it is about going faster.
We also have long since passed the point where the capability of simply going faster than the competition was necessary to sell a car. Today, reliability, safety and efficiency translate directly from the racetrack to the street. Those racecars may be able to move more than 200 miles an hour, but they can also brake from that speed to make hairpin turns with stability time after time, and they can do it while using less fuel per mile than an A45 AMG compact sedan.
However, if you decide – as Mercedes-Benz has – to take one of those high-strung racecars and turn it into a street car, it isn’t just a matter of putting on fenders, lights and a second seat. A racecar requires a support team; a street car has to just start up and go, but there’s much more to learn to make that happen. Having 275 of your most affluent customers splitting the bill with you with their contribution of almost $700 million to your development budget does help.
There is a lot more to the relationship between Mercedes-AMG and Mercedes-Benz Cars than just publicity. And at the same time, we’ll continue to cheer the motorsports teams on Sunday and drive our AMG street cars on Monday.