Tobias Moers isn’t like most car company bosses,

with their perfectly pressed suits and highly polished rhetoric. He’s a little looser than that, a little happier to go with the flow – the kind of bloke who’d rather chat over a stein than a boardroom table. True to form, he rocks up at a Stuttgart studio containing the latest model of his AMG One – the one being used to help customers spec their £2.5m purchase – just a few minutes late, wearing his trademark black leather jacket, and marginally dishevelled. “Sorry, I didn’t land until late last night; I didn’t get much sleep. Anyone else need a coffee?”

Double espresso in hand, he peels back the cover and brings us up to date on the most audacious hypercar project to date – plumbing Lewis’s F1 motor into a car you can comfortably take the kids, (OK, kid) to school in. And then I spot it, the reason why, despite issues and delays galore, Moers has managed to keep it all on the rails, because nobody could be calmer hanging halfway up an engineering cliff face. And when this man makes a promise to his customers, he sees it through.

TopGear: How often are you meeting with the customers?

Tobias Moers: I just met them. We had an event in Munich in line with Oktoberfest. There were 30 customers coming from everywhere on the planet. It’s a great community and they enjoy being part of that community. It’s a very unique band of people.

TG: Has there been a delay with the project?

TM: We have a delay. It’s not a secret – I can talk openly about it with our customers, and with you. There were some adjustments to be made on the powertrain. Heat is not the problem – getting a stable idle at 1,200rpm, that’s challenging. To give you an example, you have leakage in the throttles in Formula One and nobody cares, because it runs at a 5,000rpm idle.

At a 1,200rpm idle, you have to meet the emissions regulations. You need a stable, proper idle. If it’s unstable, your emissions are unstable.

TG: Are you still confident that you can deliver?

TM: We promised. We are going to deliver. Probably around mid-2020, so we lost maybe nine months or so. You’ll see the running car this year. It took a while to get back on track but we are open with our customers. You know what they told me? “Make sure that the car works. Because of what we have experienced in the past with hybrid cars, take your time.”

TG: What makes this a true AMG?

TM: It’s the driving behaviour of the car. It’s an overall package. Formula One has its own identity, and the cool thing is, when you drive the car – which I have – it sounds unbelievable. You don’t hear it that well if you’re wearing a helmet, but it sounds like an F1 car. TG: Describe the sound at idle?

TM: BA AAA AARRRRRRRRRRR!

TG: Has it been tested on the road?

TM: No, we are not on the road yet. We have a hub in Millbrook where we work on calibration, gearbox, everything. It’s not easy to get a hybrid F1 engine to work with a totally new gearbox and software, but we’ve made good improvements. It’s drivable. You can run it on pure electric. You can run it combined. It works. We haven’t worked out the final power output yet, but we know it’ll be more than 400kW (536bhp) from the combustion engine alone, and we’re working on the electric

motors as well. It’s definitely more than 1,050bhp in total.

TG: Are you doing much simulator work with the car?

TM: Absolutely. We are now running the installation on the simulator at AMG, the most sophisticated simulator you can get. You have to be extremely stable [pats stomach] for it. My first time in it after Breidscheid (on the Nürburgring), I was sick!

TG: How are you going to prepare owners for such an extreme driving experience?

TM: It’s not a problem. You press the button, it starts. You can drive it easily. You can start on electric power, then the combustion engine kicks in. You can run the car easily and – though you might not like to do it – you can run it easily in the city. Stop and go, everything.

TG: Will the F1 drivers be involved?

TM: Yes, but they are really busy. They will be soon, but it’s too early for these guys. We need to be at the next level.

TG: Do you have any downforce figures yet?

TM: No numbers I can share, but more than a GT3 racecar definitely. We could apply more, but then you start running into serious issues with the tyres.

TG: How does the rev limit compare to an F1 car’s?

TM: They used to run up to 18,000rpm back in the day, but not anymore – they run about 13 or 14. Here we’re running up to 11,000, maybe we can add a little bit more to that, too. Engine life is about 50,000km [31,069 miles], and then it’s a rebuild, but who’s going to get there? Not that many.

TG: Do they need much talent to get the most from the car?

TM: If you want to take it on the track, yes. Because you have to identify the point where downforce is important. Drive a car without downforce and it goes sideways, do that here and it’s not going to end in a good way. When this thing drifts, it’s not easy.

TG: Have you had to readjust your definition of fast?

TM: Yes, a little. It feels like a GT3 full-powered on the Nordschleife in fast forward. Compared to the AMG GT R, it’s like it is in fast forward.

TG: Will tech from the One trickle down into other vehicles?

TM: Everything we learned with the SLS Electric Drive is in the One. It’s still alive. It’s the same here. Take electrified turbochargers, for example. It’s an 80kW (107bhp) electric unit in the One. We’re not going to use 80kW for a normal road car, but it’s something that we’ll see in our future portfolio, for sure.

TG: Is a track-only version planned?

TM: No. We promised our customers one version only, and that’s what it should be. This is the most honest way. TG: Finally, this versus an F1 car on a short track. How close would it be?