This is a very special edition of a vehicle already exceptional.
Customers of Mercedes who bought an AMG Project One hypercar back in September 2017 probably wanted to drive it. The German automaker was given the task of providing an F1 car to the public. They said that the car would be ready in late 2018. Although it’s 2020, Rana 65556, a YouTuber and car enthusiast, takes us through the AMG GT Black Series special edition, which was created to please Project One customers. We had high expectations for the Black Series special edition of the already fast Black Series vehicle to keep the 275 hypercar-hungry customers from crashing at F1 headquarters and harassing Toto Wolff.
Rana was able to take private transport to the Mercedes-AMG Factory, Affalterbach in Germany. After a short lunch at the dealership, it became clear that we need to rethink the car-buying experience in America. We get a glimpse at the stopgap vehicle. It’s not as good as the Bond lair that McLaren Speedtail customers can access, but it shows that the German automaker is trying.
The car is a little different. The car was priced at $57,300 more (EUR50,000 more) than the standard model. We expected a bigger collection of numbers. But, spoiler alert, the results were anything but. The differences between Project One and Black Series aren’t that significant, aside from the Petronas teal stitching in the interior and F1-inspired paintwork on its exterior.
Mercedes seemed a little too thick for our liking, but it is possible to make improvements. Its twin-turbocharged, 4.0-liter V8 engine produces 720 horsepower (536kW) in the standard package. The aerodynamic package found on the GT4 racing car is inseparable with the standard package. We doubt that customers will be willing to pay $2.65 million for the AMG Project One (EUR2.27million) given its price tag.
Despite the German automaker’s continual attempts to control customers, 2020 is still the year and Mercedes Formula 1 team are busy dominating this year’s short-lived season. It’s unclear when the AMG hypercar project is going to see daylight given the current trajectory.