AMG. The A in the company name was contributed by Hans Werner Aufrecht, the M by Erhard Melcher and the G by Grossaspach – the hamlet where Aufrecht was born. Motor sport in the sixties was the domain of aristocrats, actors and the most ambitious enthusiasts. Among their number were Aufrecht and Melcher. They were determined to follow in the tire tracks of Mercedes, which had such success down the years.
On June 1, 1967 Aufrecht and Melcher opened their tuning studio for Mercedes cars. Their first success in competitive racing followed just four years later. The world’s fastest series-produced sedan, the Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3, had grown another 500 cc and conjured a meaty 428 horsepower from the standard car’s 250 hp. The 300 SEL 6.8 racer won its class in the 24-hour race at Spa-Francorchamps and took second place overall.
AMG was producing racing engines in very small numbers back then, but the tuning workshop evolved into an established firm building road-legal race-trim cars. Race results bolstered the company’s burgeoning reputation. The 450 SLC AMG was crowned European touring car champion in 1980 and the 300 E 5.6 AMG became the first W 124 E-Class to break through the 300 km/h (186 mph) barrier.
The 21st-century incarnation of the “hammer” would have to be the SL 65 AMG Black Series, a car as dark as the night with the power of 670 horses and torque limited to a crushing 1,000 Nm. Performance at this exalted level is a given, as is the fact that this is still very much a Mercedes-Benz. Just a rather incredible one. AMG has also left its mark on the legendary German touring car racing series, the DTM. In 1992 the tuned AMG machines took victory in 16 out of
24 races. In the process, Ellen Lohr became the only woman to have won a DTM race. It is a record which has set hearts racing beyond the motor sport fraternity.
1999 was the year that Mercedes-Benz cemented its relationship with AMG to form
C-Class, S and CLS-Class, M-Class and G-Class, sedan and cabriolet, even diesel engines find a place in the AMG line-up.
The company’s record of racing success – Bernd Schneider alone has won the DTM five times in AMG cars – is about as extensive as the list of famous names from sport and show business who have ordered a performance car from AMG. Every
product of the AMG performance studios represents unadulterated motor sport for the road. The CLK GTR is a fine example. As is the SLK 55 AMG, whose
genes have been laced with extra sporting ambition since 2004.
There is the danger nowadays that so much power might appear less than politically correct, but AMG owners are in no mood to panic. Almost without exception, their cars now come with various propulsion modes – from comfortable cruising with an 8 or
12-cylinder engine gurgling under the bonnet to parameters intended solely for the race track.