Hypercars are unnervingly fast, unthinkably expensive and unforgivingly impractical. Yet we all love them as they are the purest expression of mechanical art and engineering at its best. So with every car maker building a hypercar, Mercedes-AMG is not to be left behind. Especially when you have been winning the Formula 1 championships back to back.
AMG boss Tobias Moers has announced that the Project One, Mercedes’ hypercar, will be unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show later this year before it goes into production in 2018. No prize for guessing that the Project One powertrain has been derived from the Formula 1 car but it drives all four wheels. The overall power figure will touch the magic figure of 1000bhp and the front wheels will be driven by the electric motors through the AMG Torque Dynamic drive, an advanced version of torque vectoring.
Thanks to electric motors, you could drive for about 25kms on batteries only if you do not want to wake your neighbours when you fire up your turbo-V6 for a late night spin. The engine will be placed in the middle of the carbon-fibre monocoque and the 1.6-litre screamer will rev over 10000rpm. The MGU-H energy recovery system will ensure the environmentalists can sleep undisturbed.
If you were worried about how it would handle, Lewis Hamilton will join the team of test drivers once the prototypes are built for testing somewhere around October. Mercedes has confirmed that the Project One will be a road-legal car and not a track-only tool. The Project One will rival the Aston Martin AM RB 001, the Ferrari La Ferrari, the Porsche 918, the McLaren P1 and the Koenigsegg Regera.
Most of the 300 cars to be built will have been sold by now for the price tag of close to 2 million Euros (approx Rs 18 crore) and the deliveries are expected to start mid-2018.
