MERCEDES-AMG GT BLACK SERIES

This is it. Everything Affalterbach knows

- ANDY ENRIGHT

Rating 4.5

ENGINE 3982cc V8, DOHC, 32v, twin turbo

POWER 537kW @ 6700-6900rpm

TORQUE 800Nm @ 2000-6000rpm

0-100KM/H 3.2sec

WEIGHT 1520kg

PRICE $796,100

LIKE: Incredible circuit chops; presence; engineering rectitude; functional aero

DISLIKE: Not the most tuneful; auto ‘box logic; try getting hold of one

THIS IS GOING to take some explaining. Just 10 minutes earlier, the affable Mercedes-AMG PR man had been regaling me with the fact that this AMG GT Black Series costs $796,100 and that there are more than $230,000 of taxes to pay on top of that, making it an easy $1m+ car on the road. Now I’m about to substantially remodel it. I’m at Phillip Island, steaming in to Hayshed, a big commitment right hander. Turn in’s good, apex nailed, gently open the steering to let the car run out to the left hand side of the track when an ibis decides now is a good time to merge onto the circuit. Instructor Sam Brabham flinches reflexively as I accept that attempting to avoid the suicidal bin chicken is only going to make a bad situation worse. It’s coming through the windscreen straight into Brabham’s face, before flaring its wings and passing over the mirror, a tumbling whorl of feathers and legs in the vortices streaming off the car.

We’re both a bit shaken. There’s a greasy smear of some kind of unidentifiable bird juice atop the mirror housing but apart from that the car is unscathed. I bring it into the pits to decompress and avail myself of a party pie. The AMG GT Black Series isn’t easy to sum up in just a sentence.