There are key moments in the field of human ambition. Edmund Hilary summiting Mount Everest might be considered one. John F. Kennedy pointing skyward in 1962 and promising to put man on the moon within the decade is certainly another. And perhaps the newest addition to this list of audacious, outrageous feats of endeavour, should be the Mercedes-AMG ONE?
The ambition? To put, for the very first time, a Formula 1 engine in a car that could be driven on the road.
If Hilary climbed Everest “because it was there”, then Mercedes-AMG wanted to build the ONE simply to prove it could be done.
The car was announced to great fanfare at the Frankfurt Motor Show back in 2017.
“The car combines outstanding racetrack performance with day-to-day suitable Formula 1 hybrid technology and exemplary efficiency,” Mercedes-AMG said at the time. “This high-performance hybrid has an output of over 1000 hp and a top speed exceeding 350 kmh.
It took Mercedes-AMG almost as long to deliver on its promises as it took NASA to get to the moon. Production was beset by delays, as challenge after challenge had the world’s best automotive engineers scratching their heads, innovating, reinventing.
Top Gear's Chris Harris labeled the Mercedes-AMG ONE as nothing more than part of a competitive exercise "between certain brands that wanted to get caught up in the hypercar race". Topspeed.com called it the “the hypercar that probably shouldn’t have happened".
Carsales.com.au called it “a unicorn that will never be repeated” and “an anomalous freak of nature that defies logic and potentially even physics”.
Yet, it is here. The first units were delivered to their new owners last year. The Mercedes-AMG ONE exists. And it is as revolutionary as it is mad.
With an acceleration of 0-200 kmh in seven seconds or 0-300 kmh in 15.6 seconds, the AMG ONE has an electronically regulated maximum speed of 352 kmh.
The 1.6-litre V6 hybrid petrol engine with direct injection and electrically assisted single turbocharging comes—as promised—directly from the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 racing car. So do the battery cells, their arrangement and the cell cooling system.
The newly developed, automated seven speed manual transmission with four-disc carbon racing clutch delivers a maximum speed (for the combustion engine) of 11,000 rpm. (The idle speed has been lowered from the 5000 rpm of an F1 engine to a more sedate 1200 rpm—which was reportedly an engineering problem so thorny it took nine months to solve.)
Adam Allsopp, the Powertrain Director on the AMG ONE project said another big challenge had been to make an F1 engine that was, “more durable than that of a classical race car”.
“A Formula 1 engine can only withstand a few races before needing to be replaced,” he said. “Currently, our engine lasts 50,000 km. Both the ICE and the electric motors were adapted, but the technical principle of the Formula 1 car is still intact. The ICE is more or less exactly the same.”
Noise and emissions levels and safety requirements were other tricky problems to solve before the AMG ONE was street-ready.
The other thing they had to do was get the look right. Let’s be clear, it is incredibly cool. The lightweight, high-strength carbon-fibre monocoque body is more supercar than F1, but again it embraces all the same technology, including aerodynamics. The multipart, two stage, extendable rear wing, for example, provides maximum downforce.
If you want to see it in action, with all its quirk, there’s a 20-minute video on YouTube of Nico Rosberg taking delivery of his Mercedes-AMG ONE, and taking it for a spin.
Mercedes-AMG only made 275 units for a reported sale price of US$2.72 million each. Despite the eye-watering cost, the pre-order was massively over-subscribed. Mercedes has refused to make more. So, these are the very definition of limited edition–with all the market forces of supply and demand that come with that. By some estimates, you’re now looking at US$5 million to get your hands on one.
The good news is there are almost 200 1:8-scale models available. You can pick one up for around $26,150. But perhaps settling for a 60cm-long model lacks in the kind of ambition that all true greatness requires?
Images by Mercedes-Benz
