Mercedes AMG ONE Was Not As Easy To Build As One Might Think
Despite the AMG F1 team being involved, the AMG ONE presented a number of challenges when it came to making an F1 engine behave.
AMG enthusiasts have been waiting ever patiently for the AMG ONE, and by the looks of it, it’s finally here. Top Gear has had a hands-on opportunity with the car, and we get to learn some more details – and headaches – that caused this car to have a 5 year development.
Top Gear host Jack Rix was able to get a preview of the production car, finally. The stats are quite amazing, as one would expect. In total, 1,063 horsepower is on tap. That’s from all of the various power units available. electric motors drive the front, axle, and the hybrid 1.6 V6 F1 engine powered the rear axle.
But as anyone knows, you can’t just take an F1 engine and put it in a car. Each F1 driver has a team of engineers making sure vital signs are all nominal, and a car doesn’t have that. But it does have computers that can help along the way, says AMG ONE project manager Marco Lochmahr.
“This whole ‘race crew’ intelligence is implemented here in the vehicle,” says Lochmahr. Sensors, special software, and control units help keep all of those parameters in check so the customer can sit inside, press one button and go for their drive. Sounds like computers would have a good handle of it, but computers can only handle programming, not mechanical limitations.
“This was one of our challenges, to reach this idle speed of 1,250 [RPM]. And it was very very challenging to reach the emissions target of this vehicle,” Lochmahr noted of the F1 engine’s race bred habits. Even at just 1.6 liters, the tolerances and tightness of an F1 engine are far beyond anything you’d see in a road car. Idle speed at 1,250 RPM in a road car is high, but the AMG F1 engine idles at almost 5,000.
Plus, the F1 car is meant to launch once, then race. The AMG ONE has to do it multiple times. Per day. Pr hour, if you’re in stop and go traffic.
And it explains why other manufacturers like Aston Martin have gone the route of a V12. It’s safe. It’s not a challenge. And it doesn’t take nearly the same genius and ingenuity that the AMG ONE team poured into this car.
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