Mercedes-AMG put “
Top Gear‘s” Jack Rix in a private studio with an
AMG One, and let the journalist have his way with the static hypercar. Rix turned on the cameras and put on a show, divulging further particulars of Stuttgart’s crouching tiger. The 1.6-liter turbocharged V6 is
built in the same British factory that builds the
Formula 1 engines for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team. The motor also can also brag about a thermal efficiency of 40 percent, matching the
Toyota Prius.
Road manners and emissions requirements mean that instead of the 5,000-rpm idle and 14,000-rpm redline in the F1 car, the One idles at 1,200 rpm and maxes at 11,000 rpm.
Three F1-spec electric motors contribute mojo, one at the crank, one at each front wheel. They spin up to 50,000 rpm and add 160 horsepower apiece to a total figure expected to number at least 1,050 horses. In pure EV mode the front motors do all the work, making the One a front-wheel-drive hypercar for up to 15 miles.
The bodywork’s been shaped and polished so as to aid motivation depending on application. For high-speed reasons, the front badge has been airbrushed on, and the 10-spoke wheels — in aluminum or magnesium — wear carbon inserts to reduce drag. When racing is the reason, flaps atop the front fenders stand up to increase downforce on the front axle, and the electrically-deployed rear wing deploys its wing-in-a-wing.
Check out the video for more minutiae, such as the friendlier-than-a-
Valkyrie seating position, the four drive modes, and how the tires limit how much downforce AMG could extract from the rear wing.
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