AMG says no to hot SUVs

The advent of the SLS AMG is a ground-breaking effort for Mercedes-AMG. With its spaceframe construction, its transaxle layout and its double-clutch system for the epicyclic transmission, the car AMG Chairman Volker Mornhinweg describes as a "super sports car" is a basket of 'firsts'.

But Mornhinweg believes it won't be the last. When the company formulated a business plan back in 2006, an exclusive model sports car was high on the list of 'wants'.

"We made a strategic plan -- what will be our target in 2010?" says Mornhingweg.

"One top milestone within that business strategy was that we would develop and sell our first 'own' car. That was the idea at the time."

According to Mornhinweg, the concept of a "super sports car" that would be positioned in the market above the Mercedes-Benz SL sports car was fixed very early on. It was only subsequently that the company settled on the concept of the new car paying tribute to the original 300 SL Gullwing from the 1950s.

So where to from here? The SLS is gaining good exposure, but car companies typically need more than one product line for a sustainable business model -- unless that company is Porsche. Even Porsche has overcome its dependency on the 911 though. First came the Boxster, followed by the Cayenne SUV and now the Panamera.

So is that a business model that AMG would follow? Could AMG build an SUV to sell alongside the SLS, or a sedan? Mornhinweg says no. The SUV in particular, he says, doesn't fit in with the company's brand values.

"If you make your own car, as we have done now, everything has to be invested from our side," he told the Carsales Network during the Frankfurt motor show last week.

"Each Euro has to be earned and then we can invest it in new products. You have to look at the overall line-up, where is the sweet spot -- where is the highest profit -- and which is authentic to your brand value.

"Sure, technically, we can also do an SUV, but... the customer's expectation is not that we will make an SUV from scratch. Logic for them is what we have done.

"If your question's coming from that Porsche idea, this will not be our way, because we have a broad customer base -- and we have a perfect line-up; each Mercedes-Benz car can also be an AMG product -- but I think in the meantime, we are well organised as to which car we will [modify] and that's fine. I think it makes absolutely no sense to make our own car from scratch in the SUV field or E-Class segment or whatever.

"It has to be a super sports car..."

Mornhinweg admits that the company does well modifying Mercedes SUV as a sideline. On the day we visited the AMG HQ at Affalterbach in Germany, there was a G55 in the workshop being prepared for a customer with money to spend on such a vehicle -- it was already kitted out with 50mm-thick side glass to stop bullets when we dropped in.

Mornhinweg is not prepared to entertain building an exclusively AMG SUV however. We even suggested the Lamborghini LM 002 as one example of a radical vehicle type that AMG could develop and build exclusively, without cutting across existing Mercedes-Benz models.

"It makes really no sense, because if you do something like that, we have to spend a huge amount of money and there is already the ML. The ML is not too bad. For us it's a real success story. Why should I make something the same, on our own?

"When we decided to make our own car, we really figured out in detail, where is the 'wide spot' in Mercedes-Benz's portfolio -- and what fits perfectly with our brand values: performance, dynamic, individual... And it was the super sports car."

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