Whenever we pronounce acronyms or words, inevitably our mind can do nothing but associate them with more or less tangible thoughts or objects.
For many motor enthusiasts, but in particular for me Fuori di... Stella, it's enough to name the acronym AMG to make me dream and think about the pure state of the art in the motor field.
3 simple letters entered by law in the history of motorsport.
As it happens, 3 are also the tips of the Mercedes' Star, with which AMG is now inextricably linked. The number 3 has always been considered perfect, the number that in symbolism represents creativity as an expression and development of the intellect.
FROM BIRTH TO OUR DAYS
In the meantime happy 55th birthday!
Yes, it was 1967 when Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher decide to embark on a roaring adventure.
In Großaspach, the two former engineers of the Mercedes Motorsport Department (who retired some time before from racing) started a small company whose purpose was to prepare Mercedes cars and make them race on the track.
AMG was officially born (acronym consisting of the initials of the surnames of the two founders and of the town where the company is located).
In 1971 the first important results arrived: the famous Red Pig, a Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 prepared by AMG, won the second place overall in the 24 hours of SPA.
In the mid-70s the company moved to Affalterbach (still operational headquarters) and began to deal with special components and processing for Mercedes customers who asked for something more from their beloved Stars.
In the early 1980s he achieved a very important result in the European Touring Car Championship: the pair of German drivers Schickentanz/Denzel triumphed in the Nürburgring race aboard a well-prepared Mercedes 450 SLC AMG.
The real turning point, however, comes with a Mercedes model approved for road circulation: the C124 model was equipped with a “pumped” 360 HP 5.6 V8 engine.
Are you curious to know the nice nickname of this bomb? Well... HAMMER !!
Does anyone remind you of this nice nickname?
Mercedes' management saw great potential in this small reality and in 1988 entrusted AMG with the important role of official team in the prestigious German DTM Touring Championship.
The love story with Mercedes began in 1990 because a close collaboration on production models was born between the two brands. Just a year later the Mercedes 190E DTM won the championship of the same name for cars derived from the series. In 1992 it was repeated and even the title was double: in addition to the constructors, the driver Klaus Ludwig won the drivers title with the car of the Star.
In 1994, the Mercedes C36 was the first AMG-equipped car to be on the Mercedes sales list. How to make your customers fall in love? Simple: a 6-cylinder in-line 3.6 with 280 HP !!
Double success and duo of aces in 1995: the “bad” sedan of the Star won the double DTM and ITC (International Touring Car - races run by DTM cars outside Germany) manufacturers' titles.
To these, was also add the double drivers title for the Star ace Bernd Schneider.
Since 1996 Mercedes-AMG has supplied the Safety Cars to F1, while the beautiful CLK GTR coupe won the first edition of the FIA GT (drivers and constructors) championship. The double success was also repeated in 1998.
We come to the early 2000s and Mercedes bought the Affalterbach-based company entirely.
In 2006 the first entirely Mercedes-AMG engine was launched: the M156 (6.2 V8).
Previously, AMG specialized in the production of different types of engines for production cars, among which the famous Mercedes V12 prepared to equip the Pagani Zonda.
In 2009 the Mercedes SLS AMG officially debuted, which was the first car ever conceived and developed entirely by Mercedes-AMG: the icing on the cake for this model was the innovative 7-speed AMG Speedshift MCT automatic transmission.
The successes continued in the following years and in 2013 the SLS AMG GT3 won the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring and the 24 Hours of SPA.
In 2012 AMG officially entered F1 alongside the Mercedes team which became the Mercedes AMG-PETRONAS F1 Team and which after a start in which the results were certainly not flattering, has dominated the last 8 seasons of F1.
All the know-how acquired on circuits all over the world was transferred to the Project ONE Concept model (Frankfurt Motor Show 2017) of which the production of only 275 units has already been sold-out for a carefully selected clientele by Mercedes itself.
LOGO AND PHILOSOPHY
Visually, the logo is very simple: five oblique stripes of different thickness, with the thickest starting from the left, representing a valve spring. Following the three letters AMG in Sans-Serif font. With extreme simplicity we wanted to recall the close and initial link with the preparation of the engines, visually transmitting all the dynamism of the company.
A new round logo full of symbols has also recently been added:
inside, an apple tree (Affalter) and a stream (Bach) are depicted on the left half. On the right half, on the other hand, the cam of a distribution shaft and a valve with a spring are represented which identify the key segment of the company: engine preparation.
The central part of the logo is surrounded by a black stripe labeled Affalterbach at the top, two laurel wreath branches on the sides and the initials AMG at the bottom.
The round icon can be available in two color compositions: black and white, or in color.
Every engine that comes out of these splendid workshops, except the last and for now only 3.0 V6 in production, is followed and assembled from the first screw to the last identification plate by a single specialized technician. Unique engines that have a real soul, to which the heart was given by those who took care of them.
That's the place where the iconic phrase that has always accompanied AMG was born: “ONE MAN, ONE ENGINE”.
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