Photo: Michael Doyle on Flickr
Turning a sportscar into a shooting brake in the virtual world may seem like a ridiculous thing to do, but, in the case of the Mercedes-AMG GT, this does make sense and so would a production version.
First of all, any project of this kind needs a certain etiquette. Shooting brakes are cars which must have the perfect appeal and therefore everything about them has to exude confidence and precision. If there’s one company that knows how to build shooting brakes that’s Mercedes-Benz. That’s because the Germans already have the CLS Shooting Brake, while the CLA Shooting Brake is set to bow next year.
For one thing, just like any other car out there that calls itself a 911 competitor, the GT only has two seats. Sure, not all that many of the 911 drivers actually use the seats in the back, but the extra space always comes in handy, from shopping to a roadtrip with your SO. Then there’s the driving position. You do sit low in the Porsche, but, in the AMG, you’re basically buried - the resulting racing driver feel is nice, but this limits visibility.
As for the appearance of the thing, the adjacent rendering, which comes from digital artist Michael Doyle, give us a pretty good idea of just how appealing such a machine would be.
Considering all this, the shooting brake treatment would only enlarge the appeal of the Mercedes-AMG GT. With all the Affalterbach wizardry, the car wouldn’t loose its dynamic assets. Heck, these people can even turn a Gelandewagen into the beastly G63 AMG, so we wouldn’t be worried about this.
As for the cannibalization issues, there would still be plenty of distance between such a car and a C63 AMG, so you can forget about such problems.
With the 462 and 510 hp incarnations of the M178 twin-turbo V8, this would be an absolute monster that would tickle both enthusiasts and the people who actually afford to buy such cars. Yes, the added practicality would allow the Mercedes-AMG GT Shooting Brake to appeal to a larger audience. OK, perhaps without that S-borrowed rear wing at the back...
The GT would work perfectly as a shooting brake
Before the Mercedes-AMG GT showed up and even now when the car is among us and the philosophy difference is obivous, many people talk about this being a Porsche 911 rival. That couldn’t be further from the truth. While the 911 is all about mixing the racy bits with practicality, the GT is much more determined to show everybody how fast it is, leaving the usability assets behind.For one thing, just like any other car out there that calls itself a 911 competitor, the GT only has two seats. Sure, not all that many of the 911 drivers actually use the seats in the back, but the extra space always comes in handy, from shopping to a roadtrip with your SO. Then there’s the driving position. You do sit low in the Porsche, but, in the AMG, you’re basically buried - the resulting racing driver feel is nice, but this limits visibility.
As for the appearance of the thing, the adjacent rendering, which comes from digital artist Michael Doyle, give us a pretty good idea of just how appealing such a machine would be.
Considering all this, the shooting brake treatment would only enlarge the appeal of the Mercedes-AMG GT. With all the Affalterbach wizardry, the car wouldn’t loose its dynamic assets. Heck, these people can even turn a Gelandewagen into the beastly G63 AMG, so we wouldn’t be worried about this.
As for the cannibalization issues, there would still be plenty of distance between such a car and a C63 AMG, so you can forget about such problems.
With the 462 and 510 hp incarnations of the M178 twin-turbo V8, this would be an absolute monster that would tickle both enthusiasts and the people who actually afford to buy such cars. Yes, the added practicality would allow the Mercedes-AMG GT Shooting Brake to appeal to a larger audience. OK, perhaps without that S-borrowed rear wing at the back...
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