2018 Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Review

[ROCK MUSIC PLAYING] CARLOS LAGO: This is the Mercedes AMG GT R. And if you couldn't tell from the name or the giant wing on the back, this is the most serious, most exclusive, and most expensive sports car Mercedes makes. It's got 577 horsepower, an entirely revised suspension, and it's capable of doing extreme performance numbers at the test track. It's a good thing we're at the test track. Because we're going to find out exactly what it can do. We're going fast today boys and girls. We've got nearly 600 horsepower-- 577 or thereabouts. We've got, you know, not lightest weight car but a pretty lightweight car. First thing we're going to do for acceleration is the key-up run which is the car in its key-up settings. Although I've put the exhaust in it's loud mode. Because I like it like that. So let's give it a try. I'm just going to mash the gas and see what happens. [TIRES SQUEALING] [CAR ENGINE REVVING] [BEEP] That's quick. That's [LAUGHS] really quick. Oh boy. Wow. That is ridiculously quick. So immediately-- yes, this car is very fast. But you sensed-- you could hear a little bit of wind up on the initial acceleration. I bet that's where the most of our time is going to be made up with acceleration runs as we get into launch control and whatnot. But still, that performance from a key-up setting where you just mashed the gas-- I mean, we did a sub 12 second quarter mile by just hitting the gas without it working at all. That's ridiculous. Next up we're going to see what happens when we get into the launch control. And also how to get into launch control. You just turn this dial until it's in race. You hit that brake pedal with your left foot as hard as you can. You mash the gas with your right. You release the brake pedal. It's that's simple. Let's give it a try. So a little bit of tires slip there is to be expected. That is tremendously quick acceleration. And it's not that difficult to execute, which is really astounding. You could hear the tires slip at the very beginning. And the stability and traction control system working to combat that with a couple of little backfires and steps down. Still, that is a really impressive display of acceleration. We'll probably give it one more try in launch control. And then I'll see if I can do it better without using launch control. Frankly, I'd be surprised if I can. Because with vehicles at this sort of stature and at this price, their traction control systems tend to be way more sophisticated than me-- a lowly performance test driver. All right. Launch control run number two. Flatfoot the brake. Flatfoot the gas. Let's do this. [TIRES SQUEALING] [ENGINE REVVING] [BEEP] So a little bit faster-- not substantially-- but we're still making very good time. That's faster than pretty much 90% of the cars on the road. We'll give it a try or two without launch control just to see what happens. Let's try sport plus. Why not? Let's put the stability control off. And let's use the traction control. Let's see what that does. [TIRES SQUEALING] [ENGINE REVVING] So it was a little bit slower across the board. I was very gingerly on the acceleration-- did not launch it hard-- tried to keep underneath the point of spin. So clearly, there's some work to be done there. It wasn't as slow as the key-up run, obviously. And that's because I wasn't in the traction control. But it definitely was not as fast as the launch control. That was just a smooth application of throttle. [BEEP] All right. Let's dial you all the way up again. OK. Let's do it. [ENGINE REVVING] [TIRES SQUEALING] Ah, it short shifted. So we're going to have to try manual control, aren't we. And let's do this. Ah, a little slow on the shifter. Yeah, so we'll get out of it. That's not doing anything good. So not sure if the tack is slow or if the shifter request is slow. This has been a characteristic on the performance oriented Mercedes I've driven where you have to short shift. The transmission control has been kind of a frequent point of frustration for Mercedes-Benz. Give this a try. [TIRES SQUEALING] [ENGINE REVVING] It wasn't any faster. Let's just do one more run in launch control. And that will be the performance there. [ENGINE REVVING] [TIRES SQUEALING] There-- yeah, that's some speed. Yup. [LAUGHS] [BEEP] Wow. I'm good with that speed. Man, that is fast. Kids, there are more powerful cars out there. But not all of them are faster. This is immensely fast. And now we're going to see how this all works on the handling course. Because, believe it or not, this isn't a car built for straight up speed. [TIRES SQUEALING] So on to the handling loop we go with the AMG GT R. We've got it in the race setting. We've got the fancy little traction control do-hickey knob here set to its middle setting. And we'll probably work up as we get going. We've got the transmission in race. Because we're not going for a lap time. I just like to use it to feel out reference points for gears. And we'll start winding up and talking about what we've got here. And so we have a ton of horsepower and acceleration, as you're already aware of. But what that doesn't tell you is the breadth of power. Because it doesn't seem to matter what engine speed the engine is turning at. You're always getting a simply stupefying amount of power. It's rather astounding how smooth and controlled and relaxed this vehicle operates. Especially when it sounds like that and can corner like this. [TIRES SQUEALING] You have rear steering. You have a dual clutch transmission. You have a really sophisticated chassis that ensures you always have the right amount of balance. It feels very controlled and linear. And that's quite nice. It's something that feels very refined and dignified. And maybe that's exactly what you expect from a Mercedes-Benz. [TIRES SQUEALING] [LAUGHTER] And that torque-- that low end torque just means you can lug the thing around in a way that's just tremendously fun. You've got to love the control you get over a car like this. It's just terrific. [TIRES SQUEALING] Now we haven't talked at length about this traction control system. That's unfortunate because it's a neat little setup. You only access it with stability control entirely off. And once you can do that, you have these 10 settings to spin through. One through three are for wet weather. And the rest are for progressive amount of wheel spin. I wonder how useful it's going to be to a lot of drivers who actually, you know, drive quickly and do take things seriously. In my experience I've been totally fine with having it off, which has been a lot of fun. Because this car's so controllable. But it's a nice homage to Mercedes work and motor sports. And that just feels good. [LAUGHTER] The interior of the AMG GT R isn't that much different than the standard AMG GT. In this one we have this high gloss black surfacing on the steering wheel-- in the center console here-- which looks really nice when it's clean. But after a while get-- develop a lot of smudges and fingerprints. Why would you complain about this with a car that's got GT R in the name? Well when you pay upwards of $200,000 for it, you want it to look clean after time. But let's get beyond how things look and talk about the functionality of everything. You've got the push button start which we'll use to fire up the car right now. We'll turn the stop/start off. And there's a button here to make the exhaust louder. [ENGINE REVVING] That's nice. Now all these controls around here, of course, do various things. This one is your drive mode. This is your stability control. This is the firmness of your suspension, and on, and on, and on. It takes a little bit to get used to. But once you do, it's pretty much second nature. The most interesting part of this interior, by far, is this little yellow knob right here. Now that is an homage to traction control systems in, like, DTM race cars in the various forms of motor sports Mercedes is involved in. And how you activate it is you have to actually turn stability control off, which we'll do now. And that activates this controller here. There's a little light that runs across when it turns on. Now you basically use this to determine how much traction control you want. Not stability control. Now, there's a very complex system of electronics working underneath this car with the active differential and all that stuff underneath to constantly be monitoring how much traction each tire has. And you can adjust the limitation of slip, I guess you would say, by setting this dial. Now, in practice, I kind of just like to set it to one setting and forget about it. Because I don't want to be thinking about it while I'm on a track. But it is nice to be-- if you are more of an amateur or don't want to even consider the idea of putting your nearly $200,000 vehicle into a wall at a racetrack, this gives you a nice margin of safety that you can literally dial in. I like that. I think it's a neat concept. And I feel like the color a nice, again, homage to motor sports and Mercedes his involvement in it even if you don't end up using it. Or if you do use it a ton. And it looks pretty neat just in this rather black and very serious looking interior. The rest of it is pretty standard fare for a Mercedes-Benz-- especially an AMG GT. And it all works genuinely well. But at the end this is-- this guy is really what matters. [TIRES SQUEALING] That's been a test drive of the Mercedes AMG GT R. If you want to see more, keep it tuned right here. And be sure to visit edmunds.com. [ROCK MUSIC PLAYING]