Horsepower race on hold?

"When you are on the top the others want to come on the same level. When somebody might want to tackle you they take a little more horsepower -- you saw it with the new RS6. We have 525hp with the V8 and 612hp with the V12 -- it is enough," Volker told the Carsales Network in a Detroit motor show interview last week.

"It's not just horsepower. It's the overall package -- it's design; it's handling; it's exterior; it's interior and it's long-term [continuous] power. The overall package...

"When we offer this power you can really drive it at the racetrack [all day]," Volker said, suggesting some fragility in other brand's high-performance offerings.

"Physically wise there is a kind of a limit [to engine outputs]. You have to get the heat out of the system to save the engine. Have a look on our cars: there's a radiator; there's a radiator -- everything is always radiators!"

Volker is confident that despite others infringing on AMG's power advantage, the brand retains the high ground.

"Currently in that [high-performance] market we really can say we are number one. We are already the only one in that segment that has a [full] portfolio of SUV, sedans, coupes and roadsters -- we can fulfil each requirement. [And] when we talk about profitability we are also number one."

But when pushed on whether AMG would flinch and match, for instance, Audi's new power benchmarks, Volker's guard slipped a touch.

"The point is it is currently not our focus to chase them to have one more horsepower. For the future our focus is crystal clear: we would like to have good performance -- no question; we will be competitive -- no question... [But] we are very serious about taking care of our social responsibility.

"That is not to say that there may not be a few horsepower more, but it is not our main focus.

"We set the scene with our supercharged engine [Ed: the 55 series]. It is important to give our customers the feeling they have a competitive car… But in the future it is important we [also] deliver to our customers a highly efficient engine, with power, with torque but with better fuel consumption and lower C02 emissions," Volker said.

This may not come via bespoke AMG engines in the future, however. Unlike the current 63 series engine which is unique to AMG cars, future models may use Mercedes-Benz series powerplants, Volker revealed.

"Not all the time," he answered to the question whether AMG model must have unique powerplants.

"It was important we showed to the marketplace and our customers the capability to do that with the 6.3 [build its own engine] and we showed them; but the point is we had to spend a lot of money. It's not really necessary that we do that each three, four, five years."