Mad AMG GT R prototype caught testing

Is it an Evo? Is it a Black Series? Is it the scariest looking Mercedes-Benz ever made?

Nobody could accuse the AMG GT of lacking presence. Even in standard format, the long snout, cab-rearward stance and curvaceous rump ensures it never goes unnoticed. That sense of occasion only increases as you progress through the range, culminating in the GT R and GT R Pro models, which brood with such menace it’s best you don’t look at them like that for too long.

Then we have whatever this GT is. It’s been called a Black Series and it’s been called an Evo, both names familiar from Mercedes’ past, but we’ve never seen anything quite this imposing from Benz or AMG in their history. ‘Race car for the road’ is a hackneyed term, yet such is the seriousness of this car that it seems the only appropriate term. Don’t forget, either, that this is presumably a more potent version of the Pro, a car capable of 7:04 at the Nurburgring…

Bits of this car are familiar, namely the wheels from the GT R, the grille, the doors, the paint, the wing mirrors… Otherwise it’s transformed, bonnet scooped out with vents and intakes, a front splitter that looks straight from the GT3 car with double dive planes, vents and more flics on the front wings, plus the vertically stacked exhausts. Then, of course, there’s that fixed rear wing, which only seems to differ from a GT3 car through its smaller endplates. It draws the eye on a race car, so looks suitably obscene when affixed to something ostensibly road-legal.

Given this level of aerodynamic work, the car could conceivably be powered by an A-Class diesel engine and set a reasonable lap time. But that wouldn’t be the Black Series way (if indeed that’s what this car is), the BS cars always being the most powerful AMGs. We know, too, that there is tuning headroom in the GT’s 4.0-litre turbo V8, with the E63 already beyond 600hp. Plus the fact AMG has proved itself capable since 2013 and the first A45 of achieving very high specific outputs for its engine. 175hp per litre from the 4.0-litre engine would be a nice, round 700hp…

Of course nothing is known for certain just yet, though it’s also clear AMG has some pretty serious ambitions for the GT. Could it be targeting the production car Nurburgring lap record, currently held by the Manthey Racing GT2 RS at 6:40?

That would be some scalp. There’d also be no better place to advertise the fact than next month’s Frankfurt motor show, where the German manufacturers duke it out with ever more attention-grabbing cars. And you can’t get much more attention-grabbing than an AMG beating a Porsche around the ‘ring. Stay tuned…

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