Goodwood Celebrates 50 Years of AMG
Fifty years ago, the independent tuner was born, and ended up building some of the greatest Mercedes models of all time.
It could be argued that the four Mercedes AMG models in this video from Goodwood Road & Racing truly define the brand’s history. By driving the iconic Rote Sau you can see the brand’s early 1970s roots. And the 1980s birthed another icon, in the 190E 3.2.
This was the 1980s Q-ship that AMG was quite good at producing, taking a larger engine and shoving it into a smaller chassis. The CLK DTM AMG is more than alphabet soup, it was a proper mid-2000s homologation special. With huge wide bodywork, a stonking huge V8, and sharp steering, this was the super coupe that everyone wished they could own. In the modern era, it’s hard to beat a 2018 AMG GT R. The latest and greatest from the brand is a mega proper sports car.
For five decades, AMG has been building some of the greatest Mercedes-Benz hot rods in the world. It took a while for the brand to be absorbed into the Mercedes lineage, but they have now grown into the in-house hot brand, making performance variants of basically every car Mercedes sells (though we haven’t seen a Metris AMG, yet…). They’ve developed into a powerhouse of German performance, and we’re all the happier for it. Given the choice, we’d rather have an AMG-fettled Merc than any of their standard models, but that probably goes without saying.
ALSO SEE: What the Forum Has to Say About This Celebration
We can’t help but be a bit envious that host David Green gets to put his hands to the steering wheels of AMG’s history. These four cars will haunt our dreams for at least the next week. We might have added an AMG Hammer to the mix to make it a perfect five-car garage, but we wouldn’t be unhappy with any one of these four.
