The Mercedes-Benz AMG is the offspring of two German technicians that may not have initially got along but came to respect and admire each other’s talents enough to form a friendship that later turned into a company, as in, AMG.
And it has given some really great cars to the world, all of them coming with high-powered engines and a performance that was the very best for its time, with transmissions to match for drivers to be able to handle all that extra power.
The founders of AMG were Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher and they were both A-class engineers who were trying to take Daimler-Benz to great heights when it came to racing. In 1965, a new homologation rule came into effect that required all racing cars had to be basically sourced from production models, and Benz’s role in motorsports began winding down to a halt. This is when the duo took their friendship and forged a new company.
This is a detailed look into the history of Mercedes-AMG, and some of the beauties it gave to the world…
The Start & The Name Of AMG
When the new homologation rule of the ‘60s basically stopped Benz in its motorsport tracks, Aufrecht and Melcher decided to break off and start afresh – starting a new tuning and engineering company. In 1967, they started business in an old mill in Burgstall, Germany, and called it “Aufrecht Melcher Großaspach Ingenieurbüro, Konstruktion und Versuch zur Entwicklung von Rennmotoren”.
Translated, it reads "Aufrecht, Melcher, Großaspach engineering firm, design, and testing for the development of racing engines". Aufrecht and Melcher were the names of the two founders, whilst Großaspach was the name of the town Aufrecht was born in.
It seems the duo had a penchant for long names, much like their overpowered engines, which is why AMG became a far easier name for people to know the company and the product by.
The first car to come out of this partnership was the 1971-made 300SEL 6.8, known as the “Red Pig”. Armed with a 6.3-liter V8 that made 247 horses, this car became one of the zippiest production sedans in the world. Even before it became a production car, the racing trim won a six-hour grueling race in 1969 in Monaco.
The Climb Of AMG & Its Cars
With plenty of racing trophies to its credits, AMG earned itself the reputation of being the one-stop-shop for anything related to Mercedes-Benz performance. Initially, the company aimed to design and produce racing engines but soon enough discovered that they could do much more, and upgrades and customization also came into being.
In the ‘80s, it was doing very well for itself, and it was then the Hammer fell or rather arrived with a bang. AMG took the standard W124-gen E-class sedan and replaced the engine in it with that of the W-126-gen S-class 5.6-liter V8. Introduced in 1988, the Mercedes-Benz 300CE 6.0 AMG Hammer now made 355 horses, and later, came the rare 375-horsepower 6.0-coupes. Up until 1990, this is what AMG did best, make upgraded and customized vehicles under the AMG name.
In the ‘90s, Mercedes-Benz got savvier and saw the opportunity to go even further ahead with AMG, singing formal documents to get into business together – and this let AMG cars into Mercedes-Benz showrooms to be sold with greater ease and distributorship.
The C36 AMG became the first official Mercedes-AMG car to be borne out of this marriage. With 5,200 units sold from 1993 to 1997, clearly, the union was on the right track. This was also the first AMG car to officially enter the US in 1995, with a 276-horsepower inline-six engine that let it zip 0-60 mph in 6.0 seconds.
Mercedes-Benz Goes All In
By the end of the ‘90s, the C36’s successful run had told Mercedes-Benz that AMG was even more lucrative than it could have imagined. So in it went with all its fingers, and bought controlling shares of the AMG, making all AMG cars part and parcel of the official Mercedes-Benz lineup.
One of the most powerful cars that came into being in 1999 was the Mercedes-Benz SL73 AMG. It bore a massive 7.3-liter V12 engine that came rated at 518 horses and 553 ft-lb of torque, letting this beautiful roadster fly from standstill to 62 mph in a matter of 4.8 seconds, all because this was not a light car. Only 85 models were ever made.
Plenty more stalwarts came into being, like the 2003 Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG, the 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, or the current 2017 Mercedes-AMG GT R, the last of which bears a twin-turbo V8 that makes 577 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque, and looks absolutely gorgeous.
The legacy is far from over considering this brand has also given engines to the likes of Pagani and Aston Martin and even briefly dallied with Mitsubishi. The founders are also very much in the picture. Aufrecht is still part and parcel of AMG, and while Melcher moved on to start a smaller company, he still provides parts to AMG. The story of AMG is still very much in making…
Sources: Mercedes-AMG, CarandDriver