Fifty years of AMG
K – and we take a look bac On its 50th anniversary, h brand from Affalterbac forward – at the famous
AMG is not a tuning house,” says the German elder conducting the tour at the company’s Affalterbach headquarters. He’s right, but it does accurately describe AMG’S origins. It has come a long way in the 50 years since founders HansWerner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher started their business and transformed it into, as our tour guide describes it, “The performance development arm of Mercedes-benz. We develop cars in conjunction with Mercedes right from the very start of conception.” THE ORIGINS Aufrecht and Melcher, ex-daimler employees, were both motorsport enthusiasts and, in 1967, they set up an engineering rm solely for the development of MercedesBenz racing engines. Seeing potential in these powerplants that few others did, the pair carried out a series of modi cations to models wearing the Three-pointed Star. However, it was only in 1971 when a 300 SEL tuned by AMG (Aufrecht; Melcher; Großaspach: the latter being Aufrecht’s hometown) took top honours in a 24-hour endurance event at Spa-francorchamps that it rose to prominence. The Red Pig, as the big sedan was known, was essentially AMG number one.
Over time, the company gained respect and recognition, both within its home market and abroad, with one model in particular cementing its growing reputation. The Hammer was the nickname given to the Amg-fettled W124 Mercedes-benz that had a 5,0-litre V8 shoehorned into its engine bay. The moniker might’ve been bestowed on the car by a foreign journalist, but the chaps at
AMG enjoyed the description and adopted it for their halo model (see the horizontal strip at the bottom for more info).
By the 1990s, Mercedes-benz had developed a close working relationship with the private company and, in this heyday of the German Touring Cars championship (DTM), AMG was tasked by Benz to prepare its race machinery. The rst road car spawned from this collaboration was the 190 E 2,5 16 Evo, a car that allowed Klaus Ludwig to claim the DTM driver’s title in 1992.
OFFICIAL STATUS
In 1999, the Mercedes-benz board approved the purchase of a controlling 51% stake in the small rm and the rst model co-developed between the two was the C36. Launched in 1993, more than 5 000 units would sell worldwide.
In 2005, Mercedes-amg became a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler AG and, since then, the stream of rip-snorting, tyre-slaying models on offer from the performance arm of the German auto giant has been steady and impressive.
As the essential part of its DNA, motorsport remains part of the AMG ethos and Mercedes-amg still competes in DTM, runs a successful customer GT3 programme with its GT model and, of course, there is the Formula One out t run under the AMG banner, too. There are, of course, always production car pay-offs for any manufacturer that runs a racing programme and today every model line features an AMG range-topper, not forgetting the Amg-conceived and -built GT range of sportscars.
Last year saw the biggest strategic model initiative in Mercedes-amg’s history, with more than 10 new models added to the product portfolio. The result of the model expansion resulted in the company experiencing its most successful year to date. Approximately 100 000 new AMG models were sold worldwide and, with the recent introduction of the “43” series of cars, Mercedes-amg is looking to trounce that sales success by some margin.
“It is up to us to not only celebrate the success story of Mercedes-amg,” says Tobias Moers, chairman of the board of management of Mercedes-amg Gmbh, “but to help shape the performance of the future during one of the most exciting periods of automotive history.”