2021 Mercedes-AMG GT43 Video Review: MotorTrend Buyer's Guide
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00:00 This is the 2021 Mercedes AMG GT 43.
00:05 When you hear AMG, the first thing you think is power.
00:11 The second thing you think is power.
00:13 And the third thing you think
00:15 is punching the other car in the nose.
00:18 But this is the AMG 43, so it doesn't have a lot of power.
00:23 Is it still an AMG?
00:26 Let's find out.
00:27 (upbeat music)
00:30 For most of its existence,
00:33 including after Mercedes bought them,
00:35 AMG has just been a Mercedes tuning shop.
00:38 You would hand them a perfectly fine Benz
00:40 and they would hand you back a much more powerful AMG.
00:44 They never built their own cars until a decade ago,
00:47 they did, starting with the SLS Gullwing,
00:50 then came the two-door GT, and now we have the four-door GT.
00:54 True, it's just a modified E-Class,
00:57 but it's a heavily modified E-Class.
01:00 They've even gone so far
01:01 as to swap out the trunk for a hatch.
01:03 So why would AMG go through the trouble
01:05 to build their own car
01:07 and then not give it a typical AMG engine?
01:11 Because there's lots of competition, right?
01:13 You've got the base Porsche Panamera,
01:15 you've got the BMW 840 Grand Coupe,
01:18 you've got the Audi A7,
01:20 as opposed to the more powerful S7 or RS7,
01:23 and you've even got the entry-level Tesla Model S.
01:26 What we see is there is a market
01:29 for big, sexy, underpowered cars just like this.
01:33 This, again, it's heavily influenced
01:36 by the Porsche Panamera,
01:38 and yet they did such a good job.
01:41 I think it's such a tremendous-looking car.
01:43 First of all, you want your AMGs to look aggressive.
01:46 Well, take a look at this grille and headlight combo, right?
01:50 This toothy mouth, these angry eyes.
01:53 Coming back, these wheels, they look great.
01:55 They're also 21 inches.
01:57 The bodywork, the surfacing on this car,
02:00 you could teach a design class
02:01 on how to shape metal using the AMG GT.
02:05 It's that good.
02:06 I love the C-pillar.
02:07 It's just elegant.
02:09 And then you get out back,
02:10 and it's just a big, sexy rear end.
02:13 I see a little bit of Porsche 928,
02:16 and that's a good thing.
02:17 I'm inside the GT 43.
02:20 First of all, it's quite nice in here.
02:22 Second of all, it's an interesting mix
02:24 of Mercedes stuff and AMG stuff.
02:26 Let me tell you what I'm talking about.
02:28 AMG stuff, the steering wheel.
02:30 This is Screams AMG, says so right here.
02:33 It's a nice, sporty wheel.
02:34 It's got the dimpled tennis racket handle leather.
02:37 You know, this is what you'd expect to find in a sports car.
02:40 Then there's this central section here,
02:42 which has a lot of secondary controls, lots of metal.
02:44 Then we have these seats.
02:46 They are massively bolstered sports seats,
02:48 quite unlike the luxurious seats
02:50 you would find in a normal Mercedes,
02:52 but they will hold you in place for sporty driving,
02:55 which is great.
02:56 The Mercedes parts of the car,
02:58 it's the leather, the metal, and the wood.
03:00 I mean, first of all, this beautiful open-pore wood
03:03 that kind of spreads out all the way across the doors.
03:06 That's great.
03:07 The metalwork is really nice,
03:08 and then you have leather covering almost every surface,
03:11 but the central focus of the cabin
03:13 has to be this giant touchscreen.
03:16 The system is called MBUX,
03:17 M-B-U-X, Mercedes-Benz User Experience.
03:21 The depth of functionality this has
03:23 could be its own separate video.
03:25 However, I just wanna show you that since this is an AMG,
03:28 we have two AMG-specific pages.
03:31 There's a track page,
03:32 and there's also an AMG performance page.
03:35 This car has a comfort mode, sport, sport plus,
03:37 and an individual mode,
03:40 so I can set up each part of the car the way I like it.
03:42 As far as behind the front seats goes in this cabin,
03:46 the rear seats are pretty big.
03:48 However, there's only two of them.
03:50 This is a four-passenger vehicle,
03:51 not a five-passenger car.
03:54 That said, because of the hatchback configuration,
03:57 there's a lot of room for luggage.
03:59 And now the part you've all been waiting for, performance.
04:04 I used to say the best handling sedan in the world
04:07 was the Alfa Romeo Giulia,
04:09 but then I drove the AMG GT 53,
04:12 and then I drove the AMG GT 63 S.
04:16 AMG has done it.
04:17 They have figured out a way to make a big, heavy,
04:21 four-door sedan drive like a two-door sports car.
04:25 That is the reason why they built this thing.
04:28 The problem becomes what's under the hood.
04:30 This is the 43,
04:31 therefore it has a three-liter, 48-volt mild hybrid
04:35 inline six that makes 362 horsepower
04:39 and 369 pound-feet of torque,
04:41 which is not very much for an AMG.
04:44 So in terms of straight-line performance,
04:46 you know, zero to 60 in 4.8 seconds
04:48 matches a Volkswagen Golf R.
04:51 In terms of efficiency,
04:53 this thing gets 20 miles per gallon around town,
04:55 which isn't horrible for something this large,
04:57 and it gets 25 miles per gallon on the freeway.
05:00 As far as safety goes, we don't know.
05:04 Nobody has crash-tested one of these,
05:06 so we honestly have no idea.
05:08 Now that said, generally speaking,
05:10 Mercedes products are very safe.
05:12 Does this car come with a whole ton
05:14 of standard active safety features?
05:16 Yes.
05:17 So how much?
05:21 Well, the base price of this thing is $90,000,
05:25 and please remember that the AMG GT
05:27 and the Porsche Panamera are the real competitors,
05:30 and they're much more expensive than the competition,
05:33 and this is $1,000 more than the Porsche.
05:36 Now, as it sits, you're talking $108,000,
05:40 which means for $500 more,
05:43 you could get an AMG E63 S.
05:46 Remember, that has over 600 horsepower.
05:50 So in terms of value, this is a hard pill to swallow.
05:54 If there's one thing I want you to know
05:57 about the 2021 Mercedes AMG GT 43,
06:01 it's that, yes, it is an AMG.
06:05 Now look, the definition of what makes an AMG,
06:08 it changed at some point, right?
06:09 They're no longer just tuner cars
06:11 with too much horsepower that are only good
06:13 in a straight line.
06:14 Design matters, luxury matters, handling matters,
06:18 and I will stand by my claim that the GT four-door
06:21 is the best handling sedan on planet Earth.
06:24 Also, zero to 60 in 4.3 seconds is quick by any definition,
06:29 despite the horsepower rating under the hood.
06:34 If you can swallow that $108,000 price tag,
06:39 you're gonna have yourself a pretty cool AMG.
06:42 To check out the latest rankings,
06:45 go to motortrend.com/cars.