Never Stop Driving #27: Is the Mercedes Hypercar pointless?
The long-delayed Mercedes hypercar, the AMG ONE, set the record for the fastest production car around Germany’s Nürburgring racetrack: six minutes and 35 seconds. The sports car will cost nearly three million dollars and uses a derivative of a Formula 1 engine.
I find myself yawning at this achievement and I’m not sure why. I certainly appreciate the engineering effort behind the car and the audacity of the project. Back in 2017, when Mercedes announced its intentions for the car, the company boasted that AMG-ONE would be “the most extraordinary, contemporary, road-legal racing car.”
I’m also a huge fan of lap-time-based performance tests, having started two U.S.-based ones in my career. I organized the one that survives, Car and Driver’s Lightning Lap, in 2006 after Warren Mosler, the “mad scientist” behind the Consulier, suggested the U.S. needed a version of Germany’s Nürburgring test. I agreed and picked Virginia International Raceway’s (VIR) grand course because of the wide variety of turns but also for its 4.1-mile length.
The VIR record in 2006—three minutes and seven tenths of a second (3:00.7)—was set by a Ford GT. Last year, the raciest version of the Honda Civic, the Type R, set the same time. In roughly 15 years, Honda engineers figured out how to make a Civic perform like a $100,000 mid-engine sports car. Wow. Also, Honda just updated its little terror.
So, the most expensive Mercedes ever built set the record. Got it. The 275 buyers will love and covet it. The car joins a pile of seven-figure hypercars, from the Aston Martin Valkyrie to the Bugatti Chiron to the McLaren Senna to the Ferrari Daytona SP3 to the whatever is newest and next. I’d be grateful to own any of them, but the sheer number of models is starting to feel like a bit much. I’m not alone in this thinking.
By the way, I do find one of these hypercars, the Gordon Murray T.50, very intriguing. Built by the same man who was behind the McLaren F1 road car three decades ago, the T50 is billed as the last great analog sports car. It’s got a high-revving V-12 and a manual transmission and is already sold out.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, a four-mile stretch of Tennessee highway was equipped with some 300 high-definition cameras to study traffic and congestion patterns. Vanderbilt University will use the new highway and conduct a test featuring 100 vehicles equipped with driver-assist systems to see if perhaps automated cruise controls can smooth out traffic patterns.
Waymo announced that now anyone can hire a ride with one of its autonomous taxis. Previously, riders had to preregister. Waymo will also soon join Cruise by offering driverless rides in San Francisco.
If you like to wrench on cars, Rob Siegel explains how to avoid the usual nightmare of repairing cars for friends. One day, Siegel might be fixing the latest BMW M car, the M4 CSL, which Henry Catchpole reviews here. We wrote a love letter to the Tri-Five Chevy and the Barn Find Hunter Tom Cotter took us on a tour of fantastically wacky Lane Motor Museum.
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Why do we need road cars with more than 250 hp or cars that can go exceedingly fast? The speed limits still apply to all of us. These cars should not be allowed on public roads.
I agree with your sentiment. It has gotten ridiculous but also insanely cool, so let than have at it if they have the money to burn. BTW a friend of mine was just in Germany and sent pics oh the M-one in the museum there. He said it was really impressive in person
Since we seem to have a new [track]-record-shattering hypercar plaything for the .01% every month, yeah, the “new” wears off pretty quick. Kind of like Marvel movies. Sure, some manufacturers are using them as “test beds” (as some in this thread have said) to do…stuff…with technology, but do we really think that much of the tech will trickle down to us peasants in the next 40 years? Probably not, given – as you highlighted – companies are expanding autonomous driving capabilities. I think we’re past the days of anything remotely resembling “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” (which, let’s be honest, is shorthand for advanced tech trickling down to everyday drivers) and well into “win on Sunday, hail a Waymo self-driving pod on Monday to take you to your 9-5 job.”
I’d wager that the 90% of these cars that don’t get wadded up by some tech bro or crypto boi or petro-royalty will end up in a hermetically sealed vault owned by one of those types. These cars are fantasies sold to the highest bidder, and then re-sold to the highest FOMO bidder. Just like art or sneakers or real estate or watches. If their owners aren’t playing with them, they’re sitting on them in the hopes that their values go up. And if the makers get some tech development out of them, cool. But it’s not like MB is suddenly going to revert to their 1980s ways and let the engineers run the *whole* show.
If its point is to provide a good financial return for Mercedes from those rich enough to want one sitting in their collection then no doubt it has a point. However if its purpose is to be driven then I suggest that bearing in mind there is almost nowhere in the world with a road system which would allow it to reach anything like its potential I’d deem it a failure.
I agree with the article. I love these kinds of cars too, but it’s a bit much at this point. It seems every month some manufacturer has a halo car that shaves another tenth or so off the ‘ring record. While it is impressive, really, they are nothing more than engineering exercises. Which is fine. However, I don’t consider them real “cars”. A Corvette, a Porsche 911 or 718, maybe an Audi R8, these are road cars that can also tear up a track. They can also be used as daily drivers and even to pick up a few groceries or take a weekend road trip.
And they are “real” in that they are vehicles the average person can actually own.
Larry, you are becoming a curmudgeon in your advancing years. Were it not for these supercars going for seven figures (if you can find one for sale), I would be bored looking at yachts and private jets while dreaming about winning the lottery.
Write Good News, write bad news, just keep writing. Your readers are all committed to keeping driving alive. Half the fun of being a gear head is interacting with people of like mind in wonderful.
When you go to an event and you begin a conversation with another “driver”, It makes the event a better experience. Sorta like a mini car and coffee.
Yawn….
Nothing to see here, move along folks
Mercedes likes to lead so the car is relevant to their story. It is quite impressive. Perhaps we yawn now because we are overloaded with stories from every outlet, angle, and medium. It all becomes a loud noise even when it is a well written article like this one. It is an unobtainium car for me. I am still interested in the effort that was made to acheive the result. That said, things like the fact that my real estate assessment just went up a third, the electric company just announced they are doubling their rate, oil, gas, and grocery prices keep rising, etc etc are the only “hyper” in my life. So keep writing these articles. If you stop dreaming you are pretty much done. I need the distraction!
Give me good handling, 500 hp and a good set of anchors. I don’t live near any abandoned runways, so what’s the point. Can’t use it (the Speed) on the street. My grocery store isn’t that far away.
So, who works on these cars and where do you get parts? Can you insure it? Where can you use the speed on the street?
All I can say is that you are buying a piece of artwork and that’s it. May as well buy a Piccaso and call it a day. I’ll take something I can drive and enjoy.
Well Mr. Webster, it seems that there is a bit of conflict between those who love the outrageous, while others more Earthbound would rather enjoy things many more of us can have and actually truly use. In this day and age even the Porsche “911” of the current generation is a mid-$100,000 contrivance. To what end? I love styling and performance as much as the next guy or gal, though just how much do we “need?”
All I’d ever want would be a 997.2 with a manual, rear drive only. “Das Ende.”
I think my interest in this type of car diminished greatly after hearing Ed Bolian the the VINWiki folks talk about the maintenance costs for them. For instance replacing I think 20k in tires on a Veyron because they aged out after like a year? Or (if I recall correctly) having to replace the fuel bladders on an F40 for similar reasons. These costs of ownership are just something that never even crossed my mind before that.
I think many of them are beautiful to look at and sound incredible as well. But something like a Factory Five, Rally Fighter, or even a V8 swapped Miata (my current obsession) are of more interest to me right now because they are unique and/or quirky but also attainable, have a lower cost of ownership and are closer to daily (or at least more frequently) drivable. Overall just less coddling to own.
Great read! Now I have some new questions for the guys in the shop to ponder!
While the T50 and T30 are intriguing, I find the whole idea of the hyper cars boring. I want to see a new challenge for the next hypercar. It would use the least exotic and most renewable materials, will use the least energy to lap the Nurburgring the fastest and be as much fun as my Lotus Elise.
As it stands, the present race can only end with robot cars that can accelerate, stop and corner at G levels beyond human tolerance and how boring will that be?