AMG Vision Gran Turismo to be Produced – Pick Yours up for $1.5 million
Gran Turismo is famous for coaxing radical designs out of the minds of creative geniuses, and manifesting them into the video-game world as digital concept cars. Vehicles too grandiose in engineering for the real world are perfect for interaction inside one of electronic gaming’s top driving simulators. Grand Turismo’s concept cars are a bit of a double-edged sword, though. Without the video game, the virtual concepts would never have existed on TV screens the world over, yet when you’re playing with cars meant solely for the virtual world, it’s sad to think they’ll never exist in real life.
Then Mercedes-Benz brought an AMG Vision Gran Turismo mock-up to the L.A. and Tokyo auto shows. Suddenly, something we filed away in our minds as pure fantasy became more of a reality — the mock-up’s appearance was a pleasant surprise that made us auto-show goers giddy and weak-kneed. The pleasant surprises continue with news that J&S World Wide Holdings, a custom builder out of Indialantic, Florida, has committed to building five real-life versions of the Vision Gran Turismo based on the 2014 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT. The real-life AMG Vision Gran Turismo basically will be an SLS AMG GT rebodied in carbon fiber, which is expected to lighten the car by roughly 200 pounds. The wheels will be custom-designed and forged by ADV.1, and it should be interesting to see how close they get to the concept version’s wheel styling; furthermore, we hope the chrome paint they’re planning to use isn’t meant to compensate for any production limitations.
The car will also feature a retractable rear spoiler, custom exhaust system, and an interior lightly modified for Vision Gran Turismo-spec. The SLS AMG GT donor car’s 583-horsepower 6.2L M159 V8 engine and its seven-speed AMG SPEEDSHIFT dual-clutch transmission will go unchanged.
My mind is blown by the news that this car is becoming a reality. If you would have told me last week the AMG Vision Gran Turismo was going to become a real car, I would have reacted like a nine-year-old Neil Armstrong being told in 1939 that he’d eventually walk on the moon. When J&S World Wide Holdings completes its first Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo, I will celebrate it for symbolizing how the impossible can become the possible.
One of the five custom-built supercars has already been sold, and the $1.5-million asking price is a bargain compared to the $14-million scam HWA is running with their 300SL Gullwing “special edition”.
sources [JamesEdition, WorldCarFans, and Autoblog]
