NEW YORK: Mercedes AMG GTS is probably Germany’s only serious competitor for the Porsche 911 in all its 50 years. It must be hard not to grow up a car nut after spending your childhood in the Stuttgart region. For on one side of the Swabian city lies Zuffenhausen, the little village that is the home of Porsche.
While on the other you’ll find Affalterbach, which is rapidly becoming better known as the base of Mercedes-AMG.The turf war between these two hamlets and the two tribes of engineers and designers that toil in them has just been ratcheted up a notch by the recent debut of Mercedes-AMG GTS, which has Zuffenhausen’s finest car, the 911, clearly in its sights.
The price positioning and design of the GTS make comparisons with Zuffenhausen’s finest unavoidable. These are cars on a collision course towards the same market, no matter what Mercedes-AMG chairman, Tobias Moers, might say about his company not consciously seeking to “go after Porsche” with the GTS.
There are enough major differences between the two Swabian sportscars to back his statement up.The GTS is a bigger car, powered by 4.4litre bi-turbo V8 engine. It therefore monsters the 3.8litre normally-aspirated 911 on both looks and grunt. And where Porsche packages the 911’s powertrain at one end of the car (some would say the wrong end), Mercedes-AMG distributes the hardware is such a way that it creates an ideal balance, with 47 per cent of the car’s 1570kg mass resting on the front tyres, and 57 per cent loading up the rears.
