Mercedes-AMG Project One hypercar to have 217mph+ top speed
Mercedes-AMG has released another teaser for its forthcoming Project One, demonstrating a darkened picture of its front end, while also confirming the hypercar will have a top speed in excess of 217mph.
The brand previously used the two thousand seventeen Nurburgring 24hr race to provide a powertrain preview, exposing that an F1-spec turbocharged V6 and a bank of electrified motors will help it produce “1,000hp and above”.
Journalists were privately shown a scale display demonstrating the groundbreaking drivetrain in all of its glory. Buried underneath the roof-mounted carbon fibre intake is a road-tuned version of an engine with very similar specifications to Mercedes’ current W08 Formula one car.
The forced-induction 1.6-litre V6 engine has a redline set at 11,000rpm – Two,500 down on the race-spec unit – and a thermal efficiency of forty per cent, which is groundbreaking for a road-legal unit. It’s said to produce around 750bhp by itself.
The other 250bhp or so comes from four electrified motors split across both axles, powered by very efficient lithium-ion batteries. The front two directly power the front wheels, permitting four-wheel drive and a claimed all-electric range of sixteen miles. The two rear motors have different purposes; one 80kW unit drives the turbocharger, and the other is connected directly to the engine via the crankshaft.
Officially dubbed “Project One”, Auto Express can expose the F1 hybrid powered hypercar will be limited to a maximum of two hundred seventy five examples, the vast majority of which have already been sold, and our sensational photo (below) shows how it could look.
Speaking with Mercedes fresh R&D boss Ola Källenius at the two thousand seventeen Detroit Motor Demonstrate, he told us: “They are not all allocated but they are going away quick.”
A 2nd teaser picture of the McLaren P1 rival was exposed last week, ahead of the car’s official debut at the Frankfurt Motor Demonstrate in September. The car will also feast fifty years of the Mercedes-AMG bran.
This latest teaser shows a vented rear-end with no rear windscreen. A distintive silhouette and racecar-style low roofline also mark out the hypercar in the picture. A side view design sketch shows the roof-mounted air scoop feeding cold air to the turbo.
Mercedes-AMG boss, Tobias Moers, previously told Auto Express that the car would be ‘the most efficient hypercar you can get’.
Albeit the total power output will be less than that of Merc’s F1 cars, carbon fibre will be used extensively for the assets and chassis to keep weight to a minimum. Like the P1, the driver and passenger are expected to sit within a carbon bath.
The car was confirmed on the eve of the two thousand sixteen Paris Motor Display, with Moers telling Auto Express: “It’ll be a combination of low weight, range, power, lap times around the Nurburgring – things like that. We are pursuing for the entire package.”
The car was very first shown in a teaser pic flashed up during an official announcement on the eve of the Paris demonstrate (below). Bosses let slip that the time inbetween now and very first customers receiving cars is around two and half years.
Källenius added: “We have commenced development on this car and what is going to be absolutely unique about it, which nobody has ever done and very few are capable of doing, we are going to take the F1 powertrain and put it in a road car.”
Tobias Moers, CEO Mercedes-AMG: Total Q and A
Q: Mercedes-AMG is famous for its V8 engines, so what made you choose the downsized hybrid route?
A : “We looked at doing a hypercar with a big V8 or V12, but thinking about the situation in the automotive industry right now [with electrification], we determined that we had to make a hypercar that was something different, something technologically more challenging, something more sophisticated than anyone else.”
Q: Are you certain that customer deliveries of the Project One will begin by 2019?
A: “We are on track. We are still in digital testing phases, with simulators, but we have a mule for the engine that we will commence testing in October. We have had to install a brand fresh dyno at Brixworth to treat the power.”
Q: Is the Project One the begin of a programme of electrification for the AMG brand?
A: “Yes. With the Project One and the GT Concept [seen at the Geneva Motor Demonstrate in March] we are pushing the door open on a fresh era of electrified powertrains from us. There is no better way to embark that era than with a halo car. The hypercar is the very first in 2019, but beyond two thousand nineteen we will see more.”
Q: Will there be a more track-focused variant, like McLaren did with the P1 GTR?
A: “We’re not going to do what others are doing – there will be one version. No ‘Spider’ [convertible] or track-only versions, that’s it. There’s no spec for a racing version, either.”