“Black Series cars are street-legal race cars.” Mercedes-AMG GT project leader Johannes Hettinger laid it on the line as he introduced us to the winged monster snuggling close to the tarmac at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz, north of Dresden, Germany. But after a morning hot-lapping the 2021 Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series around the 2.1-mile short course circuit at the complex, where late last year I had driven both the Mercedes-AMG GT3 and GT4 racers, it was clear Herr Hettinger hadn’t been spouting marketing hyperbole. The GT Black Series is indeed the nearest thing to a racing Mercedes you can legally drive on the road.
All previous Black Series cars have been two-door models, so the compact and powerful GT coupe, which made its debut in 2015 as the three-pointed star’s Porsche 911 fighter, was the logical choice to become only the sixth AMG-massaged Mercedes to be given the Black Series treatment. “It is the pinnacle of our AMG GT family,” Hettinger says. And with 720 hp under the hood, it has the most powerful AMG V-8 engine ever built. Hettinger claims a 0 to 60 mph acceleration time of 3.1 seconds, with 124 mph coming up in less than 9.0 seconds and a top speed of 202 mph.
But the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series isn’t just an AMG GT R with a few extra go-faster goodies bolted on. There’s hardly a part of the car that hasn’t been touched and tickled and tweaked to reduce weight, increase downforce, boost performance, and improve handling.
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For example, not only are the bumpers, hood, front fenders, roof, and rear hatch all made from carbon fiber to reduce weight, but the body structure itself also has carbon-fiber parts to increase strength and rigidity. It has lightweight glass. The twin-pipe exhaust is made of thin-wall stainless steel. The front and rear camber and front and rear stabilizer bars are manually adjustable. The transmission mount is a sci-fi cat’s cradle of metal fastening points literally tied together with a single 328-foot-long woven carbon-fiber thread that wraps around them multiple times. It saves 3.4 ounces over the single-piece casting used in regular AMG GTs.
The heart of the GT Black Series is the most extreme road-going version yet of the versatile AMG-engineered 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8. Upgrades for the Black Series include new camshafts and exhaust manifolds, and, most significant, a new flat-plane crankshaft that allows the dry-sump engine to rev harder. The official power and torque numbers tell the story: Whereas in the GT R the engine makes 577 hp at 6,250 rpm and 516 lb-ft or torque from 1,900 rpm to 5,500 rpm, the Black Series version, code-named M178 LS2, makes its 720 hp at 6,700 rpm to 6,900 rpm and 590 lb-ft of torque from 2,000 rpm to 6,000 rpm. Drive is fed to the rear wheels via a version of the AMG Speedshift seven-speed dual-clutch transmission that’s been strengthened to handle the higher torque loads.
Other mechanical upgrades include the aforementioned manually adjustable camber and stabilizer bars, plus carbon-ceramic brakes with a unique rotor compound and specially developed brake pads, plus revised spring and adjustable shock rates for the coil-over suspension. The larger front grille—previewed last year on the GT3 race car—allows greater airflow through a radiator that’s been tilted forward 30 degrees to increase its cooling core. Lightweight forged alloy wheels, 19-inch diameter up front and 20-inch diameter at the rear, are shod with 285/35ZR19 and 335/30ZR20 Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires.
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More power, more torque, less weight, better brakes, and tighter suspension are just part of the story, project leader Hettinger insists. “The car’s performance is as much about the aerodynamics as the mechanicals,” he says. Indeed, a walkaround with AMG aerodynamics expert Gustavo Estrada, who worked on the aero packages for the Mercedes-AMG GT3 and GT4, reveals the GT Black Series to be as intricately aero-engineered as the race cars.
Virtually every exterior panel on the GT Black Series is different from those on other road-going AMG GTs, and not simply because Gorden Wagener’s design team wanted the car to look ganz sportlich. The bumpers, fenders, and hood have all been reshaped to better manage the airflow over, around, and under the GT Black Series, and to make the obvious aero aids—the front splitter, side skirts, that giant rear wing—and the less obvious ones—the vortex generators under the car—work better.
The complexity of the system has been dictated by the front-engine layout of the GT Black Series. Unlike mid-engine cars, where hot air from the engine and cooling systems can be vented directly out the back of the car—one reason the rear graphic of so many of today’s mid-engine supercars comprises little more than a band of mesh with taillights at either end—in a front-engine car it has to be much more carefully managed to optimize aerodynamic efficiency.
Estrada says the bigger grille and the side vents in the front bumper of the Black Series not only get 20 percent more air into the main cooling radiator but also increase cooling airflow in the secondary coolers by 40 percent and into the front wheelwells by 30 percent. Vents on the top of the fenders and behind the front wheels bleed off excess hot air, as do the two massive vents in the hood. The designers wanted a single vent in the hood so the Black Series would look like the GT3 race car, but the carefully shaped twin vents actually direct hot air around the A-pillars and along the sides of the greenhouse, keeping it away from the working surfaces of the rear wing.
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The carbon front splitter is a work of art, and it’s typical of the attention to detail Mercedes has lavished on its racing cars for more than a century. Whereas configuring the splitter of the Dodge Viper ACR for a day at the track involves a jack and wrenches, getting the GT Black Series ready for a few hot laps involves simply reaching underneath the front of the car with both hands, locating a pair of what appear to be regular hood release levers, unlatching them, and pulling the splitter toward you. Screw in a couple of stays, and you’re good to go.
The splitter is also more sophisticated than it looks: As speeds build, the air pressure differential sucks the structure behind the leading edge lower to the tarmac, effectively creating a front diffuser that generates more downforce. The air rushing under the car is turned by a series of vortex generators, one pair just inside the front wheels, another pair that starts on either side of the front end of the torque tube, a third pair on either side of the rear transaxle, and the final pair on the outer thirds of the rear diffuser. The pair flanking the torque tube comprises a series of flexible flaps that hang a couple of inches below the floor and are easily visible in low angle photos.
Key to the whole aero package is the massive multielement wing that towers over the rear of the GT Black Series. The upper and lower wing elements can each be independently set to three angles of attack, the wide upper wing generating twice the downforce of the lower when set to the same angle. An active element in the center of the upper wing flips an additional 15 degrees into the airstream to do the job of a Gurney flap, aero expert Estrada says, without incurring drag when it’s not needed. And the bodywork directly under the lower wing also has an aerodynamic profile to help manage laminar flows off the backlight.
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In simple terms, the GT Black Series provides you with an aerodynamically strong front end as a baseline, leaving you to decide how much you want to shift the aero balance toward the rear. The rear wing is so effective and finely calibrated Estrada says the AMG test drivers, many of whom are or have been pro racers, all settled on different settings during development testing. The numbers? Estrada claims the GT Black Series develops up to 1,764 pounds of downforce at top speed and is 200 percent more aerodynamically efficient than the GT R in road trim, and it’s 240 percent more efficient when set up for the track. And don’t think you need to be chasing lap records for this to be meaningful: Aerodynamic downforce is a contributor to vehicle grip from just 80 to 90 mph, Estrada says.
The GT Black Series interior is as expensively sporty as a $1,000 pair of Hermès sneakers. There’s Nappa leather on the bolsters of the standard AMG sport seats and microfiber material everywhere else, all edged with orange or silver top stitching and punctuated by aluminum or carbon-fiber trim parts. At the center of the dash, immediately under the four air vents, is the yellow adjustable traction control button from the GT3 and GT4 race cars, also used in the GT R. Our cars were fitted with the optional six-point safety harnesses and half rollcage.
Thumb the start button. The twin-turbo V-8 booms into life and settles down to a fast idle. Select manual shift mode. Select Race mode. Tug the stubby shifter into drive and rumble down pit lane.
It doesn’t take long to understand the GT Black Series is a big step up from the GT R in terms of speed and grip and braking. The flat-plane-crank V-8 stampedes to 7,000 rpm, a menacing metallic edge to the wall of sound filling the cockpit. Flick the paddles, and the rear-mounted seven-speed dual-clutch transmission snaps through the ratios with casual efficiency, blipping the throttle on the downshifts as the Mercedes coupe squirms slightly under brakes. There’s more grip from the front end on the way into the corner than in the GT R and more traction on the way out.
What’s remarkable about the GT Black Series is that although it has almost 25 percent more horsepower than the GT R, it feels more relaxed under pressure. If you’re not on the brakes, it likes a little throttle, even the merest squeeze helping steady the car noticeably. AMG ambassador Bernd Schneider, a man whose racing career included a stint in Formula 1, says that’s partly because it means the stability and traction control systems are able to work with you.
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The 2.1-mile short circuit at Lausitz is bumpier than ever—it’s in the heart of what used to be an open-cut coal mining area, and subsidence is endemic—but the Black Series rides the bumps well. There’s not the bullet-train stability of the GT3 racer through the fast left-hander at the end of the pit straight; even with that trick splitter, fancy underfloor, and big wing, the GT Black Series doesn’t have the massive downforce of the race car at lower speeds. Nor is there the mechanical grip in the slower entry to the long, bumpy right hander at the back of the paddock, though just about the best performance road tires in the business, Cup 2 Rs, are still no match for a nicely warmed set of Michelin race slicks.
But, like the GT3, the GT Black Series feels consistent and inspires confidence. To a point. Later, as I start to lean on the car, I notice some mild understeer. Schneider says that for media drives the car has been set up at the optimal ride height for the Nürburgring, and with some understeer. It’s a safety fast setup, sensible and secure. If he were going for a lap time at the Lausitz track, Schneider says, he’d put more camber on the front wheels and drop the front ride height to make turn-in response much more aggressive. Turn the race-spec traction control all the way off? Ahhh, he warns, you’ll need a very quick pair of hands to catch the rear end if it lets go.
A race car for the road? The 720-hp V-8 echoes the old-school big-banger sound and fury of the Mercedes-AMG GT3’s 6.2-liter naturally aspirated engine. That rear wing is one of the biggest fitted to a road car, but like the GT3’s it’s not there for show. The Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series is loud and fast and responsive, feels tough and bulletproof, and has been thoughtfully engineered to allow drivers of different skill levels to find a set up that works for them on the track. Yep, it’s a race car for the road.
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