AMG has just revealed its first proper, fully electric production car on its own platform and it arrives wearing the GT 4-Door Coupe badge. This is a big deal because AMG has spent decades being the poster child for loud, fire-breathing V8 excess, so going electric is a very big deal. The top-spec GT 63 4-Door packs three axial-flux YASA motors producing a staggering 1,153hp, with 0-62mph dispatched in 2.4 seconds and a 186mph top speed. It charges at up to 600kW on an 800-volt architecture, hitting 10-80 per cent in just 11 minutes. Range sits between 370 and 432 miles depending on spec. Pricing is yet to be confirmed, though expect a number that starts around $150,000.
The car it replaces was already absurd. The previous GT 63 S 4-Door ran a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 making 630hp, and in E Performance hybrid guise it punched over 800hp. With rear axle torque vectoring, active rear steer, and ride heights you could adjust on the fly, AMG turned what should have been a sensible executive car into something deranged. It earned its place in the AMG lineup precisely because it was so contradictory. A saloon that could embarrass supercars while carrying the kids in the back.
The new electric version keeps that contradiction alive. AMG has built in a synthetic V8 soundtrack, and a fake gearshift with actual torque interruption via the paddles. Then there’s the Race Engineer system: three rotary dials on the centre console that let you shape how the car actually behaves.
One adjusts throttle sensitivity, another alters the virtual wheelbase so you can make the car feel shorter and more aggressive or longer and more planted, and the third gives you nine stages of traction control to play with. So you’re not just rearranging your passenger’s stomach contents with hard launches, you’re tuning the innate character of the car on the move.
It’s not alone in this space, though. The Porsche Taycan Turbo GT does 0-60 in under 2.2 seconds. Tesla’s Model S Plaid still pulls 1,020hp. The Lucid Air Sapphire makes 1,234hp. Clearly, the four-door EV performance wars are very much on. AMG just turned up fashionably late and kicked the door down.
