Brand image is vital to the success of car manufacturers. Ferrari goes to great lengths to ensure that drivers don't change how their car looks; staff suggest certain specifications to those who might make the "wrong" decisions.

The most expensive Porsches are only accessible to those who spend enough money and are invited in, looking like a part of what they want the brand to be perceived as. But accessory to these marketing shenanigans is a marque's racing performance, be it across endurance, rally, or Formula 1. After acquiring the successful Brawn GP team in 2010, Mercedes- Benz has relied upon their Formula 1 success to showcase to the world that they are just as successful as those other German brands.

Audi may have an endurance and rally history, but Mercedes, for now, at least can have its Formula 1 success. In the V6 hybrid engine era, the brand has dominated with only one other driver, Max Verstappen, winning more than five races. With Lewis Hamilton at the helm of the world championship-winning car Mercedes' brand image has changed, seeming less stuffy but still maintaining their engineering excellence. This has translated into their road cars embracing every new technology that has come their way.

The next step in this journey is the AMG Project One, the German marque's first hybrid hypercar, based on the team's championship-winning Formula 1 car's hybrid technology, it carries on the legacy of the CLK GTR.

The AMG Project One Comes With F1 Engineering For The Street

Mercedes F1
Via: Wikimedia Commons

The AMG Project One has been developed closely with the Bracknell based F1 team; as a result, it shares much of the on-track technology of Hamilton's car, meaning the car will have in the region of 1000 hp by using five different motors, only one being an internal combustion engine a small but mighty 1.6-liter V6 engine. Mercedes-Benz claims that the car will have a redline of 50,000 rpm; how well this race-bred technology will carry over to the road is yet to be seen, but it may have its chance by the end of the year.

Hybrid hypercars to date like the 918 and La Ferrari have had red lines in the region 8,000 rpm, but that was with only one electric motor. All this technology seems particularly hardcore, but as is ever the case with these highly tuned road vehicles, it will have a somewhat luxurious interior when deliveries start later this year, with two 10-inch touchscreen displays. The car will come with bucket seats that are built into the body of the cabin. We don't know exactly how comfortable these are going to be. Beyond that, it's doubtful these cars will ever be used to do high mileages, as most probably will never see the road.

Instead, the 275 examples of the car will slip off into private collections as investments. With an asking price of over £2.4 million or around $3.4 million, Project One is just as inaccessible as its luxury hypercar brethren as found at Bugatti and Koenigsegg.

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A Shared Exterior

Via Motor1.com

The Mercedes W07 Formula 1 car shares very little in physical resemblance with the Project One. Mainly this is because Formula 1 cars aren't road legal. The engine's become idle far too quickly, something that the engineers had to work around but also their bodywork. Although it does an excellent job at keeping drivers safe in the event of a crash, it would fail on pedestrian safety. In designing Project One, Mercedes have looked to a few different places for inspiration.

Firstly, there is more than a hint of the iconic Grand Touring racer, the CLK GTR, not only in the front, but the side profile copies it greatly, and so does the rear's engine vents and the intake that is placed on top of the vehicle, the same way as that old racer did.

The return of these lost GT racing design motifs is amazing for enthusiasts to see, when Le Mans racing swapped towards the LMP1 and LMP2 class of racers which look very little like streetcars, these championships took a major hit in their appeal. Project One likely won't ever compete in a racing series like this, despite it awaiting homologation, but the revitalization of this lost history shows that although Mercedes is looking to the future, it hasn't forgotten its past.

Secondly, it can't be avoided making the comparison between this car and other hypercars on the market. To achieve speeds of over 200 mph and a degree of comfort inside, there will be a little crossover in design between cars like the Chiron, Agera, and Project One. A wide nose ensures greater stability at high speeds, along the rear is required to put the engine behind the driver. A closer parallel can be drawn with the front more split and bumper, it is shaped remarkably like the 918 Spyder, this isn't helped because the car has usually been shown off in silver the same as Porsche's previous hypercar.

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A New Age For Mercedes

Koenigsegg Gemera
Via: Koenigsegg

AMG vehicles for the longest time sold due to their ludicrous displacement engines, the C63 AMG was a brute with a vicious exhaust note beating the E92 M3 in that department. The A45 AMG, a small hatchback was the beginning of this change of focus. With emissions forcing large engines into the history books, the usual AMG offerings will be becoming four-cylinder hybrid engines.

Project One is the halo car for this change; the legacy of Mercedes's Hybrid F1 cars is embodied by Project One, a more sustainable poster car for the enthusiast. Koenigsegg's Gemera is part of this sea change as well with 1,700 hp and only a three-cylinder engine to match. Carving a future for the hypercar isn't anything to sniff at, the past generation of cars took large V8s and mated them to electric motors, but this wasn't a step far enough towards sustainability the Project One might be.