Right at the top of the Mercedes AMG GT family tree you find this, the AMG GT R. This is the hardcore
model, this is the big power one, this is the track focussed model. This GT R is everybody
at AMG squaring up to the guys at Porsche motorsport and saying, “anything you can
do, we can do better”.
The GT R gets stiffer springs and thicker anti-roll bars as part of the more focussed chassis set up. The tracks are wider too, increasing stability. The front
wings, the roof and the prop shaft are all carbon fibre but overall, the GT R is only
15kg lighter than the GT S, or 30 kg with this car's optional carbon ceramic brakes.
Even so, the GT R weighs more than 1600kg. There’s clever active aero that adds downforce
over the front axle, four wheel steering and look how far back in the body the engine sits.
When Mercedes say the GT R is front mid engined, they really mean it. Peak power is 577bhp
with 516lb ft of torque. Mercedes claims 0-62 in 3.6 seconds. You join me in the cabin of
this AMG GT R, these AMG GT’s have got such distinctive interiors, I really like them
actually. You sit low, really low, with a great view forward. The bonnet is super long,
it kind of reaches into the next county and you can’t actually see where it ends and
then we’ve got a really high transmission tunnel which makes you feel nice and snug.
These two banks of four buttons are supposed to look like a V8 engine, is that classy or
not? I don’t know. This car, the GT R, has got these fixed back bucket seats which are,
actually they’re really really comfortable. I think they’re more comfortable than the
standard chairs in other GT R’s and of course they’re really supportive as well. Yeah,
it’s a really, really cool driving environment this. Do you like this carbon trim here, this
matte carbon? £3000 that costs, that’s a hell of a lot of money for a bit of carbon
trim. This traction control system is important, that’s one of the key features of this GT R,
we’ll come back to that when we’re on the road. Yeah, it’s a really cool cabin this.
So it looks cool, it’s got a great cabin, it's got all sorts of very clever,
kind of race car derived tech on it but how does this GT R actually drive? We’ve had
all sorts of weather over the last two days and right now it’s chucking it down, it’s
soaking wet out here, the roads are really, really slippery but we have had some dry weather
so I can tell you a bit about what this car’s like to drive in all conditions. You look
at a car like this, hardcore track focussed model, lots of power, aggressive tyres and
you kind of wonder if it’s just going to be completely compromised out on the road.
Being completely honest, this car is clearly set up to be at its best on a smooth road.
I’ve driven it on smooth roads and it feels really, really good, even when you come into
a compression or dips or any of those kind of features in the road, it feels fantastic,
really nicely damped. Of course, the engine is kind of almost underneath the dashboard
so rather than being nose heavy, it actually feels really, really well balanced. You can
see that this is not a smooth road, I’m bouncing about all over the place and the
suspension just doesn’t have the pliancy to deal with it so those bumps and ridges
really upset the car. It feels fidgety, it thumps through potholes quite hard. There
is some real quality going on with the suspension work here, it’s just not really cut out
for a difficult road like this one and this car’s just not cut out for wet conditions,
we’ve got lots of spring rate, we've got big thick anti roll bars and we’ve got super aggressive,
Michelin Cup 2 tyres all of which means the car in these conditions just doesn’t have much
grip and, do you know what, it’s pretty scary, I don’t mind admitting that! I have driven it in the dry
and I have to say it feels really, really good. In dry conditions you get masses of turn-in grip from
these big wide Cup 2 tyres, masses of traction as well. We’ve got the gearbox slung out
over the rear axle, it’s a transaxle. All that weight of the gearbox pushes the rear
tyres into the ground. The twin clutch gearbox works really well with quick, snappy gear
shifts. This powertrain is as effective as it is characterful. Engine, so it’s the
4 litre, dry sumped V8, hot V with the turbos in the V for much sharper response and I have
to say, it’s one of the most responsive turbo engines out there. Proper soundtrack,
you’ve got a thunderous V8 kind of background soundtrack to it, overlayed with this noisey popping
and bagning exhaust which I actually really like.
This traction control system is super trick, that’s kind of GT3 racing car technology. You first turn the stability control off completely
and then you can fiddle with the level of intervention. Turn it to the right and you
get more intervention, turn it to the left and you get less intervention and a bigger
crash. The amazing thing about it is that you’ve got 9 different increments and even
from one increment to the next you can really feel the difference. Once you find the right
level, the system manages the power, manages the torque and manages the traction so well
that you can put your foot down and the car just goes d-d-d and drives away from the corner
really, really nicely. So it doesn’t kill the throttle, it doesn’t kill the drive,
but it doesn’t light up the tyres either. That’s really nice, I think we should expect
to see this sort of system on other AMG’s in the future because it works really, really
well. The original AMG GT's from a couple of years ago had, to be honest, bizarre steering,
kind of spookily light, ultra quick, no real sense of connection at all and it just meant
that you felt nervous in the car for the first 20/30 miles, it took a long time to actually
get used to it. With this GT R, they’ve improved it massively, they’ve just calmed
it down, taken some of the hyperactivity out of it a little bit and so now it’s just so much more
intuitive. You can start to pour the car into a corner. In dry conditions you feel like
you’ve got a good sense of connection to the front axle and even though those front wheels are
a million miles away, you really feel like you can get right on top of it on the way
into a corner. This car’s also got rear wheel steering. That’s kind of standard
across the board for ultra high performance cars these days and you can feel it working
at low speeds, at very low speeds I mean when you’re maneuvering around you can just feel
the rear axle helping the car to negotiate a turn. At higher speeds you’re not aware
of it at all. I think one of the important things about this car dynamically is that
it's kind of got a narrow operating window so get it on track or get it on a smooth road
and a dry road and it is spectacularly good fun, it feels exciting, it feels raw, it’s
focussed and it’s really, really good to drive, involving, communicative. But when
you get it on a bumpy road and when it starts raining, it’s just out of its depth and
it stops working and actually becomes a proper handful. Here comes the inevitable 911 GT3
comparison, the thing about the GT3 is that it doesn’t have a narrow operating window,
even on similar Cup 2 tyres it feels driveable in the wet and it works on a bumpy road and
of course it’s fantastic on a circuit or on a dry road as well. There are some important
ways in which this GT R is better, more exciting and more dramatic than the GT3. It’s got
more power so it feels faster, I think it looks more dramatic, I think it’s got a
more interesting cabin but as a driving device, that GT3 has still got its nose in front.
AMG deserves boundless respect for getting into this kind of hard core performance car space,
not many people have actually done that have they really? Ferrari with the 458 Speciale
perhaps but that costs twice as much as the 911 GT3, that GT3 has kind of gone unchallenged
for years and years and years but finally someone has come along, AMG has come along
and had a proper crack at it. That takes some nerve, you’ve got to respect them for that.
Hopefully, this battle between AMG and Porsche motorsport is going to go on and on and I
cannot wait to watch it unfold.