Meet the 223mph Concept AMG GT XX: a 1,340bhp EV that previews Merc-AMG's e-hypercar

This is 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 much needed Mercedes revival.

The brand that invented the motor car has fumbled its way into the electrical age, suffering lacklustre 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. It rests on AMG’s bespoke EV platform, which mixes steel, aluminium and carbon composites. It 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 GT XX is already adrift and from a bygone age when a combustion revival seemed even less likely than Elon Musk becoming a pariah.

The GT XX also looks sort of familiar. There are shades of 2022’s Vision AMG concept, and more than an echo of the following year’s more extrovert Vision One-Eleven. This mashes them together while also evoking the late 1960s Mercedes C111 showstopper. 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. The Porsche Taycan and Lucid Air may have beaten it to the punch, but it’s here now, and we like the fact that it has six circular rear lights rather than the currently modish light bar. It’s oddly old-school.

At 5.2m, it’s also imposing. 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 loud and proud, heavy on the concepty attitude. The headlights are also vertically stacked and a visual 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. AMG is acutely aware that the bass thunder emitted by its V8s is a core USP. When it comes to its BEVs, it surely has something up its sleeve.

There are an array of cooling ducts in the bonnet. They’re functional but also stop the car from looking too soapy. We like the power domes, something of a combustion era callback. The AMG GT XX is also phenomenally aero efficient – its drag coefficient is just 0.20. 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 pop-up rear air brake. As well as those rear lights, there’s a light panel that features 700 programmable RGB (red, green and blue) LEDs. Mercedes says it can show a variety of ‘content’. More content: just what the world needs.

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. It’s not production ready, unfortunately.

But the big story is what lies beneath. An overall power output of one megawatt (that’s about 1,340bhp) is certainly eye catching, but so too 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. If Mercedes-AMG has been found wanting so far in the race to master software defined, fully electric cars, the GT XX aims to reposition the company right at the pointy end.

How so? Well, 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 into two ‘High Performance Electric Drive Units’, to use Mercedes lingo. 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 work, the front one only coming into play when more torque or additional traction is demanded. It’s decoupled the rest of the time to increase efficiency.

You can thank British specialist Yasa, which Mercedes bought in 2021, for all of this. The motors will be made in a Mercedes 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 – but of course – AI.

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 here we can expect an army of drive settings and some algorithmic magic. A tyre-melting drift mode is surely on the agenda.

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.

how fast you can charge a car is just as important as how fast or how far you can drive it

We know what you’re thinking – charging points that can ram electrons in at 850kW are currently nonexistent, but Mercedes-AMG has a cunning 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. The target is for them to build chargers that can do one megawatt, AMG says. As things stand, the GT XX will charge immediately at 350kW, regardless of the battery’s state of charge or temperature, and will continue to charge that rapidly above 80 per cent. This could be a major turning point: how fast you can charge a car is just as important as how fast or how far you can drive it.

Inside? The guiding precept is to make technology visible, while emphasising efficiency and lightweight construction. The interior layout suggests a traditional engine bay, and features an extruded crossbeam structure. High voltage cables are dotted around to remind you that this isn’t actually combustion-engined. The 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. TopGear.com got to have a lengthy feel and it does a convincing impression of leather.

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.

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 and it’s connected to a steer-by-wire system with no physical metal 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.

Inevitably, the real thing will tone down the more extreme design flourishes. But the stuff underneath, that’s all locked in for mass production. Maybe the v2.0 Mercedes-AMG electric plan will be the one that lands.