AMG, Mercedes' tuning arm which competes head on with BMW's M and Audi's RS division completed 45 years of making brutish, in your face , “Lemme chop off your head with an axe” cars this week. As a part of their 45th anniversary celebrations, the folks over at AMG lined up the current stack of AMG models and also teased us a bit with glimpses of what's to come in the near future.
The image above really does make for a pretty sight. We can actually imagine taking each one of those cars for a spin and change that racetrack into a drift arena. The SLS, the CLS, the C63, the GL, you've got the entire lot here.
More importantly though, have a look at some of the silhouettes at the back. We're guessing those hatchbacks are the new A and B class models. A few photos of the A45 AMG are already floating around on the internet and this signals towards a change in strategy for the AMG brand. The A 45 AMG is representative of the ambitious future strategy entitled "AMG Performance 50", leading up to the 50th anniversary of Mercedes-AMG GmbH. This will be the first time that AMG will be working on the lower end of the spectrum, the C class constituting the previous bottom end.
Details of the new A45 AMG are a bit sketchy at the moment. There's been no official announcement but sources tell us there's going to be a 2.0 litre, 370 bhp beast under the hood revving all the way up to six and a half thousand RPM. We really doubt we'll be getting that engine, though there is talk of Mercedes getting the A class to India in its normal avatar sometime next year.
"Our goal is to build the most dynamic, most powerful and at the same time most efficient four-cylinder series production compact car. Together with other future high-performance compact cars, the new A 45 AMG will embody exclusive dynamism and the "AMG Performance 50" growth strategy. With this passionate commitment to what for us is a new vehicle segment, Mercedes-AMG plans to make a significant contribution to the growth of Mercedes-Benz Cars", according to Ola Källenius, Chairman of the Board of Management of Mercedes-AMG GmbH.
It's kind of vague for a company to celebrate their 45th anniversary, but if this is how the 45th looks, we really can't wait for them to turn 50.
