SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. I drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under real-world South African conditions. Most, but not all, the vehicles driven are world cars as well, so what you read here possibly applies to the models you get where you live.

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We drive Mercedes-AMG’s best drivers’ car: The 2016 GTS

Lingering sweet memories

Posted: 13 March 2016
Pics supplied

The numbers
Basic price including CO2 tax: R2 152 758
Engine: 3982 cc, DOHC, 32-valve, 90-degree V8 with twin turbochargers
Power: 375 kW at 6250 rpm
Torque: 650 Nm between 1750 and 4750 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 3.8 seconds
Maximum speed (governed): 310 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 12.4 l/100 km
Tank: 65 litres
Luggage: 350 litres
Warranty and maintenance: 6 years/100 000 km


Highlights
•    Aluminium, steel and magnesium body over aluminium spaceframe
•    Bodyshell mass of 231 kg
•    “Hot inside V” twin-turbo 4.0 engine
•    Dry sump lubrication
•    Front-mid engine with seven-speed dual clutch transaxle
•    Near-perfect 47:53 weight distribution

The Mercedes-AMG GT and its dominant GTS twin comprise the second sports car line developed completely in-house by M-B’s specialist vehicle arm. Exterior design is similar to that of its predecessor, the SLS AMG and features that car’s wide wheel arches and lower bodywork but not its gullwing doors. The long bonnet and slim windscreen stay the same.

It reminds one of Jaguar’s old E-Type, with its long nose and short tail, but unlike that car’s iconic backside, it's perhaps a little too pert and rounded to succeed quite as well. It needs something to balance it visually and there's a quick fix if cosmetics bother you, but we'll get to it later.

What is does have is Physics. As soon as it reaches 120 km/h, an aerofoil rises up out of the rear deck to add downforce and make it one of the grippiest cars on the road. And, when busy with serious physical activities on the track, with Race mode engaged, the winglet switches in at 70 km/h to bring you its magic sooner.

If you’d prefer the look full-time, though, an aerodynamic package priced at R43 000 provides a fixed aerofoil, a bigger front splitter and black side skirts.

Its interior is pure sports machine with a tall console dominated by two rows of four buttons each. On the left are exhaust note selector (GTS only), manual transmission mode, music centre power button and the volume dial. The other side features suspension settings selector, ESP on and off, the automatic start and stop button and the mode chooser. Between the rows, a stubby gear selector and primary input devices take pride of place.

Straight ahead, two deeply hooded dials monitor the serious business while a row of four big vents dominates the width of the dash. The overall effect is, for Mercedes, quite modern and a significant leap forward from its usual cluttered and old fashioned look.

A new AMG four-litre V8 features dry sump lubrication that keeps oil pressure up in the most hectic situations, while allowing the engine to be mounted further down to lower the centre of gravity. Then its twin turbochargers are mounted within the V to save space and keep the pipework short and efficient. It’s configured in two output ratings: 340 kW / 600 Nm for the GT and 375 kW / 650 Nm for the GTS. 

Zero to 100 km/h comes up in 4.0 and 3.8 seconds respectively, with top speeds capped electronically at 304 and 310 km/h. Some exotics may be faster, but their prices more than reflect that.

You will note that we did not say “quicker.” There’s a reason. Faster indicates straight line speed whereas quicker takes corners into account. On 29 September 2015, with Randy Pobst at the wheel, a Mercedes-AMG GTS set a time of 1:35:37 around the Mazda Raceway (previously known as Laguna Seca) in California, placing it ahead of a Porsche 911 Turbo S and a Ferrari 458 Italia.

The occasion was Motor Trend magazine’s annual “Best Driver’s Car” shootout. Pobst stated afterward: “I don’t know if I have ever driven a better-handling car. I love it that much.” He went on to relate how well the rear-wheel drive AMG GTS put power down to the track’s surface and, with a sense of wonderment, added: “It felt like it had downforce - like it was all-wheel drive.”

We have neither the talent nor the facilities to replicate that kind of testing but our humble input is: We loved the way it accelerates, the way it drives, its endless power and the sweet memories it evokes despite some ham-fisted provocation. It’s a magnificent midlife-crisis machine with enough luggage space to accommodate more than two toiletry bags and minimal clothing.

It also has a strange effect on teenage boys: Cellphones are raised to face level while they cheer and swivel from the hips as it rumbles by. But we couldn’t drive it to work and back every day. That’s because even on “comfort” settings it’s too hard-riding, too intense and, quite frankly, too loud.

Usually, especially with common transportation modules, we deal with boring practicalities like how big the boot is and whether you can reach this or that. This time we won’t. Because the GTS is too fast, too quick, too brash and too vocal for that kind of pettiness. Rather let sweet memories linger.

Test car from MBSA press fleet



What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.

Comments?
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