Tearing Up the Track in Mercedes’ Fastest Model
The world is therapeutic, of us. Laughter is again, airport strains are again, tiny shorts are again. Add to that listing hyper-expensive sports activities automobiles. COVID most positively didn’t kill these, however what good is a $325,000 Mercedes if nobody’s round to understand it?
Fortunately the 2021 Mercedes-AMG GT Black Sequence is hitting our shores at simply the appropriate time. For a number of hundred fortunate consumers, this would be the summer season of velocity: They’ll take possession of a wild sports activities automobile that not too long ago set the manufacturing automobile file on the Nürburgring Nordschleife in Germany. (Watch here in case you haven’t eaten your lunch but.)
To catch you up: The Mercedes-AMG GT is a front-engined sportscar constructed to rival Porsche’s almighty 911. It first arrived in 2015; the Black Sequence mannequin arriving now represents the idea tweaked to its quickest essence. A brand new, hand-built 4-liter bi-turbocharged V8 engine makes use of a flat crank for extra torque and a faster throttle, and makes 720 horsepower. Its bodywork is closely (but extremely calmly) reworked for the monitor. Together with the requisite carbon-fiber swaps—hood, roof, fenders, sills, rear hatch—there’s a bunch of aero enhancements, chief amongst them an enormous, two-piece carbon fiber spoiler crusing off of the decklid. That means, even the wing has a wing. Whoah, man.
The parents at Mercedes thought we would like a spin in it. They have been proper. Final week the model hauled a number of of the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Sequence automobiles to the Concours Membership, a personal racetrack situated throughout the road from Miami’s Opa-Locka Government Airport. The monitor is so new that while you peer by the warmth shimmer, you’ll be able to barely see a racing line on the velvety, scar-free tarmac.
Our time with the GT Black Sequence was transient however memorable: for a single 25-minute session we tailed knowledgeable who coached us on braking and turn-in factors. The one largest revelation was that the faster you push the automobile right into a flip, the cleaner your exit. That is courtesy of the aerodynamic work talked about above: It’s all there to cut back drag and construct downforce. At excessive speeds, that vast double wing basically sucks the automobile nearer to the street. As an alternative of shedding grip, you appear to achieve it. It feels virtually counterintuitive.
Concours’s 2,100-foot straightaway allowed the GT Black Sequence’s distinctive engine to take a star flip, shouting towards its 7,000-rpm redline. In race mode, the seven-speed paddle-shifted computerized shortly finds you the wanted torque. Simply as shortly, large carbon-ceramic composite brakes assist you to exactly arrange for the following flip. Within the sauna-like 91-degree warmth of the day, the A/C compressor went out in my mannequin a number of occasions. The draw back: Sorry in regards to the sweat-soaked microfiber seat, Mercedes. The upside: Home windows down, I may higher hear the flat-plane soundtrack of the GT Black Sequence forward of me.
Consistent with the theme—unique, gasoline-powered extra to welcome us again into the after occasions—Mercedes-AMG selected the occasion reveal its newest powerboat, too. Known as the Cigarette 41-foot Nighthawk AMG Black Sequence, the “Magmabeam orange” machine was styled by the Mercedes-AMG design crew with cues from the GT Black Sequence automobile. It does 90 on the open water, which we will affirm. We will additionally affirm you can’t purchase the multi-million greenback boat—it’s already spoken for. Like we mentioned, social gathering time has begun as soon as once more.
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