Chalk up another Mercedes that we’re never going to own, right there next to that Merc-made golf-car for those in need of money-removal surgery. Mercedes-AMG is teasing a new hybrid supercar (and if those words don’t make you perk up inside, your soul is dead) called the Project ONE.
The world gets its first official look at the Mercedes-AMG Project ONE at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt. For now we have to make do with nothing but a silhouette that practically screams ‘race track’. It might also bellow ‘trust fund’ and while it’s also whispering ‘Formula One tech’, the name and Mercedes themselves have spelled that one out for us.
No, really. The company says that “…the two-seater supersports showcar for the first time brings the very latest and efficient, fully-fledged Formula 1 hybrid technology to the road.” Doesn’t get a whole lot plainer than that, but we were hoping for a touch more detail. Officially, the hybrid speedster will boast the power of a thousand horses and a top speed of over 350km/h — the upper limit of what they’ll allow a road-car to do on the road (and you’re not supposed to go that fast).
Unofficially, the Project ONE is expected to feature a 1.6 liter V6 turbo Formula One engine as well as two electric motors: a 137HP crankshaft-connected motor and a 104HP motor that compensates for turbo lag.
The setup will be blistering if you’re running it as a hybrid system but it’ll apparently also give you 25km of all-electric driving (if you’re trying to get away for an early tee-off on a Sunday without waking the neighbours, we guess?). It’s all race-car, though. So much so that the engine needs to be rebuilt every 50,000km or so.
Grabbing a Mercedes-AMG Project ONE might be costly. There are only expected to be 275 in circulation and they’ll start at $2.5 million (R32.4 million). We’ll see more at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt a little later this month.
Source: Mercedes