Our private AMG factory tour – what an experience!

gkstar · 2011-08-16 23:19:33

We just came back from a trip visiting a few European countries, Germany being one of them. As you can guess, cruising the highways with speeds around 200km/h was quite an enjoyable experience :zoom:. The real highlight in Germany however was our family visit to the AMG plant in Affalterbach. We arranged the visit in advance by e-mail, after a few forum members gave me some useful pointers. As soon as I contacted the AMG factory, I received a timely and polite response asking me to provide the VIN of my C32 as the private tours are only offered to AMG owners. Tour time was set to accommodate our schedule – nice. To make things even better, a forum member (thanks Dave!), called the AMG headquarters and asked them to arrange lunch for my family as part of the visit. Now the visit itself... My wife, two daughters and I arrived at the factory in the early afternoon. As I drove between the buildings, we were very pleasantly surprised to see massive Canadian flags raised at two different locations – the first welcome sign. The receptionist at the customer center directed us into the customer lounge. We were met by our first host – Sarah. What followed was a superb service and a three course meal – just for us, there were no other visitors at that time. Even the plates and cutlery were top notch quality, with subtle and stylish AMG logos on them (not available for purchase, I checked, though we found the plates later on with no logos at 30 Euros a piece!). After lunch, we met our tour guide, Ursula, another very friendly person. The tour started. We followed the AMG engine assembly line from the very beginning where workers get the bare bone block to the last station where engines are tested. I do not have to tell you how well organized and clean the entire facility is. Tools are not lying around on tables but are hanging off the ceiling. Just before mounting a part, the worker scans the object with a scanner to register the part with the engine for future traceability. They also scan tools before they use it so that a computer can aid them in case they miss a step. A person assembles around 2.5 engines per day but nobody is being rushed to be faster – focus is on quality, not assembly speed. We went to a service hall where a few AMGs were serviced. There were F1 safety cars and cars used by the AMG driving academy. We had the chance to hear beautiful engine roar! Did you know that among the 300 AMG engineers, there are a few engine sound engineers? The person who assembled the engine on my C32 a few years back still worked at the factory and we wanted to meet him though he was on vacation at that time, unfortunately. Ursula, who we found to be a very knowledgeable person, spent close to three hours with us, showing us stuff, explaining how engines evolved, how they hire and train people and answered many question, including a few from my daughters. A bit to our own surprise, everybody in the family immensely enjoyed every bit of the visit. We ended the tour in the show room where everyone had a chance to sit in a red SLS. Guess what kind of face book pictures were uploaded shortly after... Bottom line: if you have the chance – do not miss this great experience. I could clearly tell that they are looking forward to meeting more AMG owners and show them how it is made. All it takes is a mail to visit-amg@daimler.com and... a trip to Germany. :y Here are a few pictures: