Mercedes-AMG had taken the wraps off the Project One F1-engined hypercar five years ago at the Frankfurt Motor Show and it’s been a long time coming since then. Destined to be the fastest road car ever by Mercedes, it was delayed due to development hurdles with making the turbocharged 1.6-liter V6 petrol engine meet emission standards and noise regulations. Well! It’s through all that and the car is on the assembly line now. Mercedes-AMG will only manufacture 275 units of the Project one.
The cars are being put together by hand at AMG’s Coventry facility in UK while the hybrid powertrain with its four electric motors is made by the Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains division in Brixworth. The same division was also responsible for developing and producing the heart of its F1 car. To start production of the One, AMG teamed up with Multimatic to set up a bespoke production facility. The company claims that each and every vehicle has to go through 16 assembly and testing stations and Mercedes-AMG describes the process as resembling the production of luxury watches. Over 50 people are involved in the production of a One hypercar. Once the car is assembled, it undergoes a roll-out at an adjacent proving ground where a factory test driver gives it the proverbial green light.
The engine is tuned to churn out 1034 bhp and is covered in protective wrap and transported in a closed truck to Affalterbach in Germany at AMG’s headquarters. This is where the owners finally get their hands on the hypercar and also receive a technical vehicle briefing by AMG One experts. The Mercedes-AMG Project One can can do 200 km/h in less than 6 seconds and has a top speed of 350 km/h. It has also run purely on electric power with a range of 25 km and its internal combustion engine will need to be rebuilt after 50,000 km something that is quite common for an F1 engine