Mercedes-AMG sets new benchmarks with wild Project One
Supercars have long been the undisputed pinnacle of automotive envy, sitting atop the vehicle tree with a perfect blend of mind-melting performance, over-the-top styling and a pricetag to make your wallet weep.
Each year sees more and more competition for the crown of “world’s fastest” or “most powerful” or any other superlative, but every now and again a new car comes along that is so far beyond the opposition that the yardstick needs to be remeasured.
Think the Ferrari F40 or McLaren F1 in the past. This time however, it’s Mercedes-AMG who has pulled out all the stops and turned what was once just fantasy into reality with its ballistic Project One.
Pushing well past the supercar category to sit amongst the top-tier in the hypercar class, the Project One surpasses its peers in all three categories of performance, style and sheer cost.
Mounted in the middle of the two-seat model sits a 1.6-litre 24-valve V6 petrol engine, which actually sounds quite humble in a class where twin-turbo V12 and quad-turbo W16 powerplants reign supreme.
However, the Project One’s beating heart is no ordinary engine – the 1.6-litre unit stems from the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 racing car and uses an electric motor system to boost performance to over 740kW.
Exact power outputs a yet to be finalised, but the German car-maker promises the engine will rev all the way to a staggering 11,000rpm and be underpinned by four electric motors that can operate to 50,000rpm.
With two motors powering the front wheels, one to spool the electric turbocharger and the final one mounted directly onto the engine crankshaft F1-style, the Project One will accelerate from zero to 200km/h in less than 6.0 seconds.
But where is the 0-100km/h time you ask? Well, Mercedes says that benchmark time is useless at this level of performance, so has opted for a new standard from which to measure the Project One’s feats.
For context, the Volkswagen Golf GTI, Toyota 86 and Mazda MX-5 need more than six seconds to accelerate to 100km/h, meaning the Project One will be doing double their speed as they reach the national highway limits.
The insane acceleration is a result of two 120kW electric motors turning each of the front wheels, while the hybrid V6 set-up sends 500kW to the rear axle, securing the status of the Mercedes-AMG Project One as an all-wheel-drive monster.
Power is sent through a bespoke automated manual transmission with eight available ratios and can be operated via steering wheel-mounted paddles or simply kept in automatic mode.
In pure electric mode, the Project One sports a 25km driving range but its regenerative braking system can recoup up to 80 per cent of energy in everyday use, while the exhaust system can also recover electricity.
Looking like nothing else on the road, the Project One’s aesthetics are characterised by gaping front air intakes that channel air through the bumper and into the roof-mounted inlet, which stretches into a thin, vertical shark fin to improve cornering stability.
At the rear, the central exhaust outlet is flanked by two smaller openings as a homage to the F1 while carbon-fibre is, as expected, featured heavily throughout the body work.
Inside, Mercedes has kept things to a minimum with two 10.0-inch screens – one tucked behind the rectangular-shaped, F1-inspired steering wheel and the other for the central infotainment system – and barely anything else to keep drivers being distracted from the road ahead.
If everything about the Project One so far has you salivating and ready to head down to a Mercedes dealership to place a pre-order, we’ve got some news that will bring your hopes and dreams crashing straight back down to reality – hard.
Mercedes-AMG is only building 275 examples of the Project One, all in left-hand-drive configuration and each one costing an eye-watering €2.27 million ($A3.34m), although eight of which have already been snapped up by very well-heeled Australian customers.
For those that miss out on the monster Mercedes, take heart in the fact that it will actually have genuine competitors in the top-echelon hypercar segment, starting with the yet-to-be production-ready Aston Martin Valkyrie.
Revealed at the 2017 Geneva motor show, Aston Martin has worked closely with Red Bull Advanced Technologies and AF Racing to produce the eye-catching V12-powered Valkyrie with a power-to-weight ratio of one horsepower per kilogram.
Not content to just sit on the sidelines though, McLaren will also throw its hat in the ultra-hypercar ring with a three-seater F1-succeeding model currently dubbed BP23.
Very little is known about the already sold-out McLaren model, save for the fact that it will be the brand’s most-powerful model to date and likely surface in the next few years and feature over-the-top aerodynamic bodywork similar to its Aston Martin and Mercedes-AMG rivals.
While Mercedes-AMG was first to reveal its hand in the hypercar arms race, it will likely be very hard to match – let alone surpass – the Project One’s undeniably impressive specifications.
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