Hammer time: up close with the wild Mercedes AMG GT XX concept

Rottweil is a small town in Germany’s Black Forest with several claims to fame. You can guess the first, not least because there are sculptures of handsome but rather intimidating dogs around the place. The second is the TK elevator test tower, where engineering megacorp Thyssenkrupp stress tests its lifts. It stands 246m tall, a swirly stick of rock lording it over a sea of trees. Apparently they’re working on an elevator that can move horizontally as well as vertically. Yep, like the one in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Back on ground level, Mercedes-AMG is showcasing its own technical wizardry. In a converted Kraftwerk (it means power station), Top Gear is poring over the Concept AMG GT XX. It’s a sleek four door that presages AMG’s first standalone electric model (if we skip over 2013’s SLS Electric Drive, of which only nine were made), due on sale some time next year to spearhead a gravely needed Mercedes revival.

The brand that invented the motorcar has stumbled into the electrical age with flatlining demand for its pebble smooth, EQ badged offerings. Long binned is the plan to be all electric by 2030. But a hangover from that optimistic moment underpins the GT XX.

Photography: Wilson Hennessey

It rests on AMG’s bespoke EV platform that mixes steel, aluminium and carbon composites, and will also underpin a Ferrari Purosangue-rivalling SUV and – hopefully – a new hypercar. Mercedes junked plans for another electric only platform designed purely for luxury cars so, weirdly, the the GT XX is already an orphan from a bygone age when a combustion revival seemed even less likely than Elon Musk becoming uncool.

You’ve kind of seen it before – back in 2022 there was the Vision AMG concept, and the following year the Vision One Eleven. This mashes them together while leaning into the lovely late 1960s Mercedes C111 showstopper for visual inspiration. Its Sunset Beam orange paint, electroluminescent rocker panel and flamboyantly raked windscreen tick all the right conceptual boxes.

What’s more, this is a pretty accurate preview of a car you’ll actually be able to buy. Think of it as an electrified replacement for the current GT 4dr and you’re on the right lines. Judge for yourself but TG is thinking Porsche Taycan meets Ferrari 812. Well, in the rear lights. Because while everyone else is embracing LED light bars, the GT XX has six circular tail lights. It’s almost, whisper it, old school. Future shock, it seems, is out.

On the exterior, maybe. Everywhere else, this concept is fast forwarding us to an exhilarating new place. Well, a place already populated by the likes of Lucid’s Air and Porsche’s Taycan Turbo GT. An overall power output of one megawatt (that’s about 1,340bhp) is eye catching, but equally tasty is the GT XX’s ability to charge at up to 850kW.

That means it can hose around 250 miles of range into its batteries in just five minutes. “Drive hard, charge hard” is the new mantra (a tag line in search of a film). If Mercedes-AMG has been eclipsed so far in the race to master software defined, fully electric cars, the GT XX repositions the company right at the sharp end.

Here’s how. The new car uses an 800V architecture and axial flux motors, which are two thirds lighter than radial flux ones and take up a third of the space. There are three motors, packaged in two, in Mercedes parlance, ‘High Performance Electric Drive Units’. The rear mounted unit weighs 140kg and integrates two motors, along with a planetary gearset and a silicon carbide inverter, in a single oil cooled casing. 

Up front, the other 80kg drive unit contains a motor, spur gear transmission and an inverter. The rear EDU does most of the heavy lifting, the front one only coming online when more torque or additional traction is demanded. It’s decoupled the rest of the time to increase efficiency.

All of this comes courtesy of British specialist Yasa, which Mercedes bought in 2021. The motors will be made in a Merc facility on the outskirts of Berlin, and require 100 separate production processes. Mercedes says 65 of these are new to the company, and there are patents pending on 30. New forms of laser welding are being used, as well as – predictably – AI.

“The main advantage of this motor is the continuous power,” says development engineer Moritz Jeckel. “We say it’s the perfect sprinter in terms of acceleration and the perfect marathon runner when it comes to endurance. Where other motors are starting to give up, this one is still going strong.”

We’ll have to wait for more details, but Merc claims a top speed of more than 223mph and 0–124mph in five seconds. That’s Koenigsegg Jesko territory. Beyond confirming the presence of its 4MATIC+ all wheel drive system, there’s no word yet on how the system will vector all that grunt. But as this is AMG we’re talking about we can expect an array of drive settings and some algorithmic magic. We’re holding out for a tyre melting drift mode.

Then there’s the GT XX’s underfloor battery pack. The cells are tall and skinny, shortening the distance from the core to the casing and allowing heat to dissipate much more rapidly under load. The individual cells are housed in laser welded aluminium, so they’re lighter than steel and have better conductivity. There are more than 3,000 of them, packaged in plastic modules and cooled using an electrically non-conductive oil. The cooling process is on demand, each cell module perfectly primed so there’s no dropoff in performance. Drive hard, y’see.

Of course, charge points that can ram electrons in at 850kW are currently nonexistent, but Mercedes-AMG has a plan. It has partnered with Alpitronic, a specialist in high power charging, to devise the next gen infrastructure. The company has developed a prototype that can handle that amount of energy using a standard CCS cable. “And the target is for them to build chargers that can do one megawatt,” adds battery specialist Bertram Tschamon.

As things stand, the GT XX will charge immediately at 350kW, regardless of the battery’s SOC or temperature, and will continue to charge that rapidly above 80 per cent. The penny has definitely dropped – how fast you can charge a car is just as important as how fast you can drive it. And indeed how far.

Back to how it looks. At 5.2m, it’s imposing but manages its proportions adroitly. There’s a graphic contrast between the main body and the lower rocker panel which uses that clever electroluminescent paint to display the car’s state of charge. The AMG nose is present and correct, with its 10 vertical struts and heavy attitude. Expect the real thing to rein it in a bit.

The headlights are also vertically stacked and represent something of a departure. They have integrated loudspeakers, with a passive membrane for improved low frequency response. They’re primarily for pedestrian protection, but might have other applications. Suggestions to the usual address. AMG is acutely aware that the bass thunder emitted by its V8s is a core USP. When it comes to its BEVs, it has something up its sleeve, for sure.

There are an array of cooling ducts in the bonnet. They’re functional but also stop the car from becoming too much of a gormless looking aero lozenge. We like the power domes, presumably a combustion era callback. The AMG GT XX is phenomenally aero efficient – if anything has a lower drag coefficient than this car’s 0.20, we can’t think of it.

The front splitter wraps around into a side air curtain, and underfloor vanes reduce lift. AMG’s active air control panel reappears here to optimise cooling. There’s also a popup rear air brake. The sextet of rear lights are cool, and there’s a light panel that features 700 programmable RGB (red, green and blue) LEDs. Mercedes says it can show a variety of content. But nothing lewd.

The real thing will tone down the more extreme design flourishes. But the stuff underneath, that’s all locked in

Indeed, the GT XX is probably best viewed from the rear three quarters irrespective of what’s on the pixel display. This thing needs those rear shoulder lines for definition and stance. The concept car also uses an active 21in aero wheel, with five movable blades monitored by a central control unit with an actuator in the wheel hub. If the brakes need additional cooling, the blades move. There’s more cleverness – each actuator uses a tiny generator to capture electrical energy from the wheel. Looks cool, not production ready, unfortunately.

Inside? It’s a case of making technology visible, while emphasising efficiency and lightweight construction. The interior aims to evoke a traditional engine bay, but mainly reprises the grille (as an extruded crossbeam structure) and leaves some high voltage cables lying around. The bare, stripped look is heightened by the front seats. The shells are carbon fibre, the pads 3D printed and made of a biotech material called Labfiber that upcycles used racing tyres and features vegetable proteins in its composition. One tyre equates to four square metres of this leather-look material. It’s a convincing facsimile.

The wheel is similar to the AMG One’s, a cut down rectangular yoke inspired by Formula One. Mercedes has confirmed this is production ready – connected to a steer by wire system with no physical link between your hands and the front tyres. Remember the old days, when thundering V8 AMGs refused to go in a straight line? Now computers are supposed to take care of that for us. Gulp.

The base colour is black so silver and orange elements really pop. There’s a ‘shrink lacquer’ crackle finish on the centre console and elsewhere. Fabric loops rather than handles open doors, and there are chequered flag patterns on the door cards. Inevitably, the real thing will tone down the more extreme design flourishes. But the stuff underneath, that’s all locked in for mass production. Like its neighbours in this corner of Germany, Mercedes is in severe need of a technological lift.