R50

The mid-mounted V6 drives the rear wheels through a bespoke seven-speed automated manual with a four-disc carbon clutch, and is joined by four electric motors: 90 kW on the turbocharger shaft to erase lag and harvest exhaust heat, 120 kW on the crankshaft, and a 120 kW motor for each front wheel. Together they make 782 kW (1,063 PS) and an all-wheel-drive car that will also creep 18 km on battery alone. The body is carbon fibre over a monocoque that carries the engine and gearbox as structural members, the doors open upwards like a butterfly’s, the rear wheels steer, and in the two circuit modes the front fender louvres open, the two-part rear wing extends and the whole car drops onto its push-rod suspension. Making a race engine survive the road cost it revs and compression: 11,000 rpm instead of 14,000, a strengthened crankcase, port injection added alongside direct, an electrically heated catalyst, and a rebuild every 50,000 km that AMG says can run to €850,000.

Mercedes-AMG built 275 cars between August 2022 and 2025 at roughly €2.75 million apiece before tax, and turned away four times that many orders. Engines came from Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains at Brixworth and final assembly from Multimatic at Coventry — the R50 was never sold in the United States, where homologation would have blunted it.