The elongated hood and the cockpit placed at the tail. My first view of the Mercedes AMG GTS leaves me speechless. This is a real sportscar. And when I hear the engine start up, my hand leaves the side of my body and reaches for the sky long before I hear the words Who wants to go first?

I had the pleasure of spending three days on the german autobahn with the Mercedes AMG GTS. As you’ve already understood I have a serious fondness for fast cars. It is not so much the engine and the engineering that I find alluring, it’s more the possibility of going really fast. Sometimes I get afraid for myself when I have this much power at my disposal. To be honest I am not a very good driver either. And I do not believe the people at Mercedes knew who they trusted their car with. If they had known they would never have invited me to the AMG factory in Affalterbach, on the outskirts of Stuttgart.

Mercedes AMG GTS is a car developed entirely by the AMG factory. They say themselves that they do not make cars, they make engines. On the GTS they supposedly designed and developed the engine first, and then they built the car around the engine. It is still the aesthetics of the Mercedes AMG GTS that dazzle me. The inspiration is clearly from the Mercedes-Bens SLR300 Coupé designed by the famous Rudolph Uhlenhaut in 1955. That is a big plus in my opinion. The SLR300 is a looker and the GTS is a refined edition. It is simply a pure and beautiful sportscar.

Driving the car, even at slow speeds, disclose a fantastic balance. At high speed the car is so stable that 240 km/h feels like 80 km/h in my normal car. That would be the quite boring and  family friendly Passat Alltrack. AMG placed the engine as low as possible on the aluminium spaceframe and behind the front axle. The dual clutch transmission at the back axle. The weight is distributed optimally and the balance is near perfect. The result is impressive agility and handling.

The kick and the power in the 4.0 liter V8 biturbo is evident at once. The car has got numbers that are not unheard of when we are talking about sports cars, 510 Hp – 650 Nm, but the weight to hp ratio is insane at 3.3 kg/hp. At the end of the video above you can see me come up behind a Mini. Being forced to break, I have 120 km/h for a few seconds there. When I leave the Mini behind I have 240 km/h. AMG states 0-100 km/h in 3.8 sec. I may have had a limp foot there behind that Mini, but the dual clutch transmission system saved me a good 4 sec on 120-240 km/h.

All said, breaking is really the funniest thing to experience in this car, and in AMGs in general. Of course the ceramic brakes is a blast to test, but the bubbling sound of the engine when shifting to a lower gear just makes me ecstatic.

You don’t need to be an educated race driver to have fun in this car. It is astonishingly easy to drive for a car with this much power and potential. I just buckled my seat belt and did 240 km/h on snowy roads as easy as driving my family car. The only difference was the amount of speed, sound and thrill.

The car I tested was priced at 185.000 EUR.

You will find more information at Mercedes AMG.