Mercedes-AMG Turns 50

By Carandbike Team

1 mins read

Published on January 16, 2017

Highlights

AMG was founded by Hans-Werner Aufracht and Erhard Melcher in 1967
It was bought over completely by Daimler AG in 2005
Mercedes-AMG sold 99,235 units in 2016

One of the foremost tuning houses and race engine developers, AMG recently turned 50 and over the years, the company has made numerous strides in motorsport and has offered some legendary performance vehicles. Let us take you through a quick timeline of the Mercedes- AMG. It was in 1967 that Hans-Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher started an 'office' for designing, developing and testing race engines in Burgstall, Germany. The company came to be known of AMG wherein A stood for Aufrecht, M for Melcher and G was Grobaspach, the birth place of Aufrecht. It was 1971 when the AMG 300 SEL 6.8 won in its class at the Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour race. The duo of Hans-Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher inaugurated the Affalterbach facility in 1976. The company started manufacturing sporty sedans and coupes. In 1984, Aufrecht developed a new cylinder head with 4-valve technology, making its debut in a 5.0-litre V8 engine. AMG started collaborating with Mercedes-Benz in 1990. It had already begun building racing cars for Mercedes-Benz for the DTM (Deutsche Touring Masters) racing series. The first ever model from the Mercedes-AMG collaboration was the C 36 AMG, which later went on to become a best-seller and the official safety car for the 1996 Formula 1 season. In 1999, Daimler-Chrysler bought 51 per cent of Mercedes-AMG. In 2005, Mercedes-AMG was a 100 per cent owned subsidiary of Daimler AG. The Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG was the first ever model to have been completely developed in-house by AMG. With its blistering performance and the iconic gullwing doors, its legendary status was cemented. (Mercedes-AMG Turns 50) AMG entered into motorsport again, with the SLS AMG GT3 in 2011 and it also entered into customer racing with the SLS GT3. The Mercedes-AMG GT was the second car that was designed and developed in-house by AMG, with subsequent updates in 2015 and 2016. In 2016, Mercedes-AMG sold almost 99,235 units, a 44.1 per cent growth over 2015 sales figures. USA, Germany and China were the biggest markets for Mercedes-AMG vehicles. Mercedes-AMG says that the unit sales have tripled from 2013. The company believes that continuous development of new AMG models and the addition of more vehicles to the existing portfolio. Mercedes-Benz India too is gearing up with a slew of launches, the first being the Mercedes-AMG C 43 that was launched a month ago.