AMG Performance Centre arrives in Oz

The new Mercedes-AMG GT made its Australian public debut last night at the opening of the nation's first AMG Performance Centre in Brisbane.

The yellow right-hand drive GT S Coupe was presented to 400 guests – mostly faithful Mercedes-Benz customers – by AMG's global chief Tobias Moers the day before the GT made its world debut as the 2015 Formula One Championship safety car in Melbourne.

Almost simultaneously, Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific announced a starting price of $295,000 and opened the official order book for the GT S, all examples of which are understood to be spoken for a number of years ahead.

Many of the 100 or so vehicles to arrive this year will go to Queensland customers, who comprise a large proportion of AMG buyers in Australia – the world's largest AMG market per capita.

Last year about 11 per cent of the nearly 32,000 Mercedes-Benz vehicles registered in Australia were AMG models, and the owner of the 10,000th AMG sold Down Under was at the Brisbane event last night.

Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific sales boss Brad Kelly said 12 AMG Performance Centres would eventually be opened here (and two more in New Zealand), with more to follow in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and other major metropolitan centres.

He would not say which location would follow the M-BA/P-owned AMG centre in Brisbane, which is located on prime real estate in a showroom formerly occupied by Daimler's soon-to-be-discontinued smart car brand.

But he confirmed a number of other AMG Performance Centres will be opened in Australia this year, and all of them will be 'shop-in-shop' establishments – unlike the Fortitude Valley outlet adjacent to Mercedes-Benz Brisbane.

Mercedes-Benz has opened about 400 AMG Performance Centres globally since 2008 – most of them in the past two years – and Kelly said there was no particular reason Brisbane was chosen to host Australia's first.

But he noted that although Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane were the country's three largest AMG markets, there was a significant concentration of AMG customers in south east Queensland, including the Gold Coast.

"There's no special reason Brisbane is first, but location is part of it," said Kelly. "We have identified the 12 sites and there will be more this year, but timing is not locked in and we're not yet sure of the order.

"This one is factory owned, but many of them will be independently owned. It will be shared investment with dealers."

The first AMG Performance Centre is a large two-storey glass-fronted building that previously also housed used Mercedes vehicles. Upstairs are offices and a cafe/bar, while downstairs there is an enormous showroom, waiting room and lounge with large TV screen and displays of leather, interior trim and wheel colours and designs.

Kelly said the AMG Performance Centre was not a "mod shop" to display mechanical parts but could in future house chassis components like the GT's optional ceramic brakes.

"The idea is about a customer coming to our brand for the first time and particularly AMG and experiencing what AMG is all about.

"It's an AMG showroom. It's about AMG performance. It's exclusive, spacious and uncluttered. We don't expect the showroom to be full – it's about space and intimacy."

Kelly said that although repeat customers comprised a large part of the new GT's customer base, the first AMG supercar since the SLS was discontinued last year has also generated a number of 'conquest' sales.

"We've been getting new customers from all sorts of brands," he said. "Porsche is one, Aston Martin is another."