The Mercedes-AMG GT S is AMG’s anti-Porsche bomb
Toasting the Porsche 911’s 50th birthday in 2014, we decreed its life and times to be exceptional. This is the two-door that defined what a modern, fast, and comfortable sports car should be. Porsche’s half-century of earnest development turned a flawed blueprint into a machine with grace and soul. If you don’t long for a 911 of some stripe, your head is in the wrong magazine.
Which is why any manufacturer serious about building a worthy sports car hangs its bull’s-eye on the 911’s shoulders. Mercedes—or, more accurately, the newly coined Mercedes-AMG—is the latest to fix aim with its GT/GT S. The Benz boys are no strangers to sporty two-doors. There’s the SLK for mistresses and the SL for their sugar daddies. But those roadsters bow down to the preproduction GT S coupe we recently drove near AMG’s Affalterbach engineering lair northeast of Stuttgart.
A mile into our mountain-road sprint, with AMG chairman Tobias Moers chaperoning, it’s clear why SL is not part of this car’s name. While the GT S is the lineal descendant of the SLR McLaren and the SLS AMG, this newborn is a different kind of predator. From the SLR, two nose jobs, wheelbase trims, door schemes, and price cuts finally have yielded a sports car armed to maim Porsche 911 GT3s and Turbos (not to mention the Aston Martin Vantage, Audi R8, Chevy Corvette Z06, Jaguar F-type, and Maserati GranTurismo). Prices are nowhere near final, but we’re guessing the base GT will start at $115,000, while the more powerful, fully outfitted GT S will run $150,000.
Beneath the long hood, AMG’s new 4.0-liter V-8 is loud and potent. Its deep startup growl becomes a quaking rumble when the two turbos roll in. Thrust is instantaneous and intoxicating. Paddling the seven-speed automatic sends a repertoire of barks and snorts rattling through the mufflers. Thanks to its two-cylinder edge over the 911, the GT S is audibly assertive when provoked, yet subdued in the upper gears under gentle throttle.
The audio is all-natural, Moers says, because he despises the synthetic soundtracks used by others. What’s missing is a soprano aria at the 7000-rpm redline. The turbos mute the high notes so effectively that this pipe organ stops short of the upper octaves.
Corroborating evidence that the GT S is a worthy 911 foe: its exceptional agility. AMG trimmed 175 pounds off the SLS’s 3750-pound curb weight and cut the wheelbase by two inches. The lighter engine and shorter nose help shift the GT S’s weight balance to 45/55 percent, front/rear, what AMG development boss Jochen Hermann considers the perfect distribution.
More at Car & Driver: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a15109576/2016-mercedes-amg-gt-s-prototype-drive-review/