Automotive Shotime: Dec 21 — Mercedes AMG ONE
Introduction
I wish all of you an early Merry Christmas everyone! I bet you are excited about the festivities, and I hope you can spend most of your time with your friends and family, whether you’re going out for supper, shopping for presents in a mall, or just playing outside in the snow. I hope you will have fun during Christmas.
Back to Automotive Shotime. In today’s episode, we will be taking a look at the Mercedes AMG-ONE, a road-legal racing car that is inspired by Formula 1, peppered with superlatives, and made for the road.
Bringing Formula 1 performance and sensation to the road
When I say this car is inspired by Formula 1, I didn’t just mean the people behind this draw their inspiration from a Formula 1 race car. The Mercedes AMG ONE comes with a 1.6-litre V6 turbo petrol engine derived from a Formula 1 car. It is a small engine, I’ll admit, but it also has four electric motors for the turbocharger, crankshaft and front axle. The motors are powered by an 800-volt battery developed exclusively by High Performance Powertrains. When they combine their power together, they can deliver a massive 1063 horsepower at an astonishing redline of 11,00 rpm. Impressive.
Such high horsepower can only mean very high speeds. It can do 0–100 km/h in just 3 seconds, and 15.6 seconds to reach 300 km/h from 0. Moreover, the AMG ONE can reach a staggering top speed of 352 kph, even with electronic regulation systems. Moreover, the car is tested under Formula 1 Driver programmes, and the active aerodynamics, the tighter chassis tuning, the lowering of the vehicle and the full performance of all its motors all operate just as in the Formula 1 qualifying.
Aside from the engine, its chassis is also drawn from Formula 1. It is built from innovative multi-link aluminum chassis with a super-strong, lightweight Formula 1 carbon monocoque body, and it also has transverse push-rod suspension, effectively reducing the car’s body roll and removing the need to install anti-roll bars, even during aggressive cornering. The composition of the top-notch racing technology it has is truly immaculate.
Optimized Aerodynamics to the last detail
Good aerodynamics have always been a crucial part of the success of high-performance vehicles, as we can see with some of the cars featured in the previous episodes of Automotive Shotime. Striking a balance between having active aerodynamics for the best cornering capability while still being able to reach a good maximum drive is the motto behind the AMG ONE.
To achieve this, the AMG ONE has moveable slats for the front wheelhouses, along with a two-part extendable rear wing and active flaps on the front diffuser, which can be adjusted to suit the driver’s wishes and chosen driving programme for optimal racing conditions. At the back of the car, there is the iconic longitudinal fin seen in Formula 1 cars for better airflow around the car. Even the aluminum wheels are aerodynamically optimized for the best possible performance at high speeds.
Performance inside-out
To the people who developed the AMG ONE, performance isn’t just about big horsepower or fancy aerodynamics. It sets its tone even in the interior. For starters, the buckets seats inside the cars are integrated into the monocoque, offering optimal support to the driver, and making sure of its stability even when there is massive G-force.
The steering wheel in the AMG ONE is not in an ordinary circular shape, instead, it is like the ones that you see in Formula 1 cars, with knobs for different driving programmes, and of course, the centre display for showing current speed, revs-per-minute, and so on. Other than that, there really isn’t much else. The insides try to make the driver’s experience as close as possible to driving an actual Formula 1 car, minus having the roof.
My thoughts on the AMG ONE
If you have read the previous articles, you will know that vehicles like these don’t really have practicality. However, I feel like they were actually practical at some point compared to the AMG ONE. At least none of the cars don’t have more than a thousand horsepower, at least they don’t have Formula 1 steering wheels or many different buttons of various race modes, and, most importantly, none of them are as pricy as the AMG ONE, costing 2.72 million USD when it initially launched.
The AMG ONE, despite being road legal, doesn’t feel like it belongs to the car. It’s not suitable as a daily driver, of course, but I sometimes think about the AMG ONE and be like: It’s more of a race car, and it should only stick to the track. It would be better as a race car, even if that meant not being road legal. To some degree, this is a pure race car only for the track, with all its technology taken from Formula 1 cars and using the same materials seen on race cars. The only difference would be that you can drive the AMG ONE on the road legally, and not with other race cars.
To me, even though the Mercedes AMG ONE is extremely fast, very cool-looking, and packed with loads of cool stuff, I found it less interesting than cheaper and more common sports cars. Cars like these are nice, but they can be a bit…unrealistic. Not in a bad way, and certainly not saying that it is a useless car, but to me, I would not want to have one. It seems too unconventional to buy a car that can only go fast around the race track during the weekends and can do nothing much else. It would be very fun to drive it fast on a proper race track, but you will probably be bored to death in its tight cabin when you are on the road with others.
Conclusion
And that is it for today’s episode of Automotive Shotime. For the last Automotive Shotime article in 2022, we will be taking a look at a car that has even more power, and very well be, less practical than the AMG ONE. And with that, take care, and I’ll catch you later!
