There’s a reason why carmakers don’t put Formula 1 engines in road cars. Several, in fact. Firstly, there’s the cost element. Even a conservative estimate for a current, ultra-complex hybrid engine is north of £10m, and that’s before you consider the price of the gearbox and all the other trimmings. Then there’s cooling. A highly-strung F1 engine needs to ingest humongous amounts of air to keep cool, which is why mechanics hurriedly bung leaf blowers into the cooling ducts whenever a car is sat still. And while F1 engines are more durable than ever, they’re only good for around 1,500 miles of running before dropping off in performance or, more likely, expiring in a plume of smoke.
Fortunately, none of this has stopped carmakers from throwing caution to the wind and having a crack at it. The obvious one is the Ferrari F50. Its 4.7-litre V12 was a heavily reworked version of the 3.5-litre engine that powered the Scuderia’s 1990 F1 car, while the Porsche Carrera GT’s V10 was a distant relative of the motor used by the Footwork team in 1991. But aside from Lanzante’s TAG-powered 930 Turbo (of which only a handful have been made), no manufacturer has successfully shoehorned an F1 engine into a road car without any alterations. Well, until Mercedes came along with the AMG One like the one you see here.
No, your eyes don’t deceive you. This isn’t a build slot, it’s a proper production car that’s already tallied 34 exciting miles. And that’s significant for the One because it’s taken many, many years to get to this point. This includes seven long, gruelling years of testing and development, proving just how difficult it is to make an F1 engine road-ready. Especially the current 1.6-litre V6 hybrid engines, which even the rule makers have conceded are too complicated and are therefore simplifying them for the next regulation shakeup in 2026.
For Mercedes, however, it was the perfect way to prove the road relevance of its F1 tech. Fans weren’t all that keen on the muted V6s after years of screaming V8s, but placing the same engine that powered Lewis Hamilton to the 2015 F1 championship in the back of a hypercar is one way to go about winning them over. And it’s largely unchanged in the road car, getting the same 1.6-litre displacement, with both an MGU-K (Motor Generator Unit - Kinetic) and MGU-H (Motor Generator Unit - Heat) recouping energy into an 8.4kWh battery. Where it differs is with the addition of two electric motors up front, which combined with the combustion engine develop 1,063hp.
Getting that all to work together, especially when trundling around in traffic, proved hugely challenging. You’ve probably heard some of the rumours - nevertheless, Mercedes finally pulled the trigger on production in 2022. Even then, it can’t be driven like any other supercar. The start procedure is said to be highly specific, as demonstrated by 2016 F1 champ Nico Rosberg when he took delivery of his earlier this year. For instance, it takes over a minute to warm the catalytic converters up, and cutting the engine before you’re meant to is a big no no. Do that six times in a row and Merc will lock the engine, requiring a call out from a technician with a laptop to get it started again. Oof.
Mind you, a fiddly start procedure is a small price to pay to experience a modern F1 engine, whether that be pottering around Monaco or at full pelt around your private race track. And at £2,800,000 for the car you see here, it’s a good deal cheaper than the V6-powered Ferrari F80 - and that’s before you throw options into the mix. This AMG One’s perfectly specced, too, using the same black with silver star livery as worn by Hamilton’s all-conquering W11 from 2020. It even comes with an array of accessories, including AMG-branded noise-cancelling earphones from Sennheiser. It’s been a long time coming, then, but it’s sure to have been worth the wait.
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