Inside AMG: a brand in transition?

A very special SL 65 sits in the reception area of Mercedes-AMG's head office. Built to customer order, the Black Series car is finished in a metallic orange that comes from Lamborghini's colour palette. It's an example of the lengths to which AMG will go in meeting the demands of the company's customers.

The AMG business model is one that Australians should find easy to understand. While purists would not compare the two cases, AMG is a concern that extensively modifies vehicles, just as HSV and FPV do.

The principal difference between AMG and the Australian companies is that AMG starts from a higher base of donor car. And further to that, AMG works on the basis that cost is less of a consideration -- so there's a whole higher order of magnitude to the tweaking of motor cars. The ballpark price for the SL 65 Black in AMG's reception area is "a little more than" 400,000 Euros, for example.

With the introduction of the SLS sportscar, the vehicle modifier has effectively taken on the mantle of vehicle builder. The car is still a Mercedes-Benz at heart, and will be sold through Benz dealers, but it is an AMG model exclusively.

"There is no Mercedes equivalent," agreed AMG engineer, Alexander Weber. "We are definitely investing more and more into differentiating technologies."

Asked whether AMG could migrate from modifying vehicles to building distinctly branded cars -- as happened with Jaguar in its formative years -- Weber doesn't answer the question directly, but implies that as time passes, AMG models are diverging from their Mercedes donors anyway. He cites the different engine, suspension, steering and brakes in the E 63 as tell tales for that evolution.

But will there come a time when a person walks into a dealership and asks about "an AMG", as opposed to asking for "a C 63" or "an "SL 63"?

"It is already [here]," replies Weber. He takes the view that the company is every bit as much a separate brand as smart and Maybach.

But, "we will never move away from that," he says, when it's pointed out to him that AMG models still wear the Mercedes-Benz corporate badge.

Once known for modifying Porsches as well as Mercedes-Benz models, AMG is now owned by the three-pointed star and operates out of a modern facility in Affalterbach, Germany. It's not by any means some Dickensian factory. There's nary a hint of grime or soot in the engine-building plant, which an Australian contingent of journalists visited during the drive program for the E 63 AMG earlier this week.

We were shown through the engine plant, where AMG's high performance V8 and V12s are hand-built. Unlike other engine plants, where a production line worker may do nothing more than bolt in place a cylinder-head, at Affalterbach, a production line worker does everything, and on just one engine at a time.

The worker is allocated an engine and follows that engine through the plant, fitting the pieces like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle -- although none of the workers find the job puzzling. They're all highly trained artisans, says Weber.

Each engine achieves an output guaranteed by AMG to fall between three per cent above or minus one per cent below the published power figure. That contrasts with a variation of between five per cent and minus five per cent in other engine factories, says AMG.

The engine is tested at various points during the production process. At the end, the engine is subjected to a 'cold test'. Hooked up to a test bench, the engine's crank is rotated and the amount of torque required to turn over the completed engine -- without firing it -- tells the production staff whether the engine is "healthy" or not.

Weber says that the number of defects is very low.

Buyers can specify who will build their engine. It delays the delivery of their car, but it's a practice that AMG actually encourages. If an AMG owner wants the new car's engine built by the same worker who built the engine for his or her existing vehicle, they can make that request and meet the worker in person.

It's good for morale for vehicle buyer and engine builder to meet. The buyer feels like it's a personal transaction and the worker enjoys receiving praise for his work -- from someone who has actually lived with the car.

It takes three days to build an AMG engine, so the buyer who wants to nominate the engine plant worker can expect delivery of the new car to be delayed at least that long. It may take even longer for an engine to be built if, during the course of its production, a worker goes on leave. We saw an engine partially completed -- just sitting there, awaiting the return of its builder from leave to complete the job.

There are "a little over 60" workers employed building engines at Affalterbach and, according to Weber, the staff turnover is low. There's not the constant, repetitive grind, and the workers are presumably paid what they're worth, by a prestigious employer. Why leave?

In another section of the facility, AMG's Performance Studio, customer's cars are modified to suit personal taste. Older cars can be refitted with new mechanical components, new cosmetic features and new interiors.

Weber says that AMG goes beyond the ex-factory 'Designo' look and that as much as 10 or 15 per cent of the car's purchase price can be spent again on an AMG interior, on average.

It's in this department that you might find a bulletproof G-Wagen, a red leather-trimmed SL 65 or a carbonfibre/flat black C 63. We did…

To paraphrase one of the attending journalists, this is Toys R Us for grown-ups.

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