AMG as we all know is the performance division of Mercedes Benz cars. They have made some awesome cars out of the ordinary luxury cars from Mercedes Benz passenger cars. The name AMG stands for its founders namely Aufrecht, Melcher and Großaspach. After seeing its popularity, Mercedes Benz annexed it in 1999 and renamed it as Mercedes AMG GmBH. Before that, it was known as a tuning firm which made the already powerful Mercedes cars, to have a better ride and handling package. We had the fortune of actually visiting the AMG factory located at Affalterback on the outskirts of Stuggart.
It is note worthy that though AMG takes the basic car from its parent company Mercedes Benz, it develops an engine of its own. This is considered a vital part of any car and hence is hand built. These engines have only one person designing the entire lot. From 2004, every AMG engine coming out of the posh factory premises carries the signature of the engineer who built it. As of now, there are 64 engineers working in the entire 2 shifts and each one of them build about 4-5 AMG engines per day. There is a new 5.5 liter, dual turbo engine been made and hence the factory unit has been expanded recently. A testing facility and one which is full fledged with a dyno has also been added. They even test the engine’s reliability factor after all these modifications by keeping it running close to its red line for 48 hours. It can be noted that any after market modification to a Mercedes car just gets you void of its warranty however if tuned by AMG, then the cars would still retain their warranty.
Just besides this main factory, AMG have set up a Performance Studio which takes care of all customization orders from Mercedes Benz as well as for AMG customers. Here one can even request for any specific stitching thread for their car seats, leave alone body parts, customized wheels and also upholstery. The detailing going into every AMG car is very painstaking and one which includes even the car’s acoustics. For this very purpose, AMG have appointed even sound engineers who listen to the sound of the exhaust pipes and then tune them so that they would be music for those on the inside as well as the ones standing and gawking at the AMG cars outside.
AMG is not only a tuners factory and they are making their own car. They have designed it from scratch and very little help was taken from parent company Mercedes Benz in this regard. However to gain this project, AMG had to walk the extra mile and prove to Mercedes Benz that they were capable of building their own car. For this, Mercedes asked them to design two prototypes namely the SL63 Black and the SL65 Black. These test was passed in flying colors by AMG and hence they got the go ahead for the now famous SLS AMG. The gull winged SLS AMG is a hard to believe yet positive attempt by AMG and deserves a standing ovation. We were so at loss of words after seeing the AMG facility as well as their indigenious SLS AMG car that our respect for those “tuners” has grown manifold. Kudos to AMG.
