A car with no rear windshield but with speakers coming out of its headlights and wheels that automatically open up to cool down your brakes, the Mercedes Concept AMG GT XX is the ultimate fully-functional show-off machine for Mercedes' long-awaited electric AMG.EA architecture. Merging innovations from Mercedes-AMG and the company's Formula 1 team, every element seems wild and innovative in this engaging electric vehicle and builds on the design cues of the Mercedes-Benz Vision One-Eleven concept. With a car this hot, most of the novel technological advancements made by Mercedes in the construction of the Concept AMG GT XX are focused on cooling it off.
Let's address the elephant in the room: Mercedes says this color is called Sunset Beam Orange, but we know what it really is. It's Jalopnik Orange. The Jalopnik bump is back, baby! We brought back orange, so now every cool automaker is doing the same on their concepts. Coincidence? Hell no. We're trend-setters, taste makers and the dreamers of dreams.
The Mercedes Concept AMG GT XX pumps out an astonishing 1,341 horsepower and has a blistering top speed of more than 223 miles per hour. Like most supercar EVs, this one is all-wheel drive thanks to Mercedes' new High Performance Electric Drive Unit (HP.EDUs). What the hell is a HP.EDU? So glad you asked! HP.EDUs are small packages containing everything this electric car needs to convert electrons into speed. The Concept AMG GT XX comes with three HP.EDUs; one in the back holding two axial flux motors and one in the front containing one motor. These are the same motors to grace the One-Eleven concept back in 2023 and can be found in other supercars like the McLaren Artura. By building motors that run the electromagnetic flux parallel to the motor's axis of rotation, instead of a conventional electric motor, which runs perpendicular to the axis of rotation. I'm not entirely sure what that means in terms of physics, but what it means in terms of power is that Mercedes was able to create incredibly small, energy-dense motors. Each of the two motors in the rear HP.EDU are only 3.1 inches wide while the front HP.EDU motor is only 3.5 inches wide. That front motor only engages during hard driving when additional power or traction is needed. When not in use, the front HP.EDU decouples, leaving the GT XX a rear-wheel-drive car.
Inside, the HP.EDU also contains compact planetary gearset and one inverter for each motor. The unit also packs in the oil pump unit for keeping the spicy little motors and transmission cool, though the inverters are water-cooled. Mercedes says it took 100 processes to build the powerful little mechanical meatballs, with 35 being world firsts.
The 800-volt battery sits in the familiar skateboard layout, but the battery itself is full of new technology courtesy of AMG and Mercedes' Formula 1 engineering team in order to achieve a charging time of about 250 miles in around five minutes. It's made of 3,000 smaller, thinner aluminum cells that allow faster heating and cooling of the battery — important for both enhancing charging times and maintaining the lifespan of the battery. Each of these cells comes with its own direct cooling modules for optimum heat dissipation, along with non-conductive oil coolant to remove even more heat. There is also a passive cooling plate on the underbody of the car to capture as much air-cooling as possible for the battery and the concept also utilizes the active air control system used on previous AMG GT vehicles, which manages hidden air intake vents in the front bumper. These vents stay closed to reduce drag and only open when the battery hits certain temperatures are hit.
The higher-voltage battery allows for weight savings as well via lighter cables and wiring. Cooler batteries means the Concept AMG GT XX can charge more than 850 kW at 1,000 amps across a wide range of charging bands. To achieve such charging speeds, an entirely new charging station and cable will be needed and Mercedes plans to expand its charging network to handle these increased loads, but there is no clear timeline as of now. Right now, there's only 850-kW charger in existence, but the hope is to have 10,000 "high powered" chargers — or chargers capable of over 400 KW charging — by 2030
But that's not where the cooling ends. If you're driving this car, you're driving it hard, which means cooking those brakes a little. The concept comes with 21-inch wheels made up of five blades with actuators that open automatically open the blades to cool red hot brakes. The blades stay closed when not needed to keep everything streamlined and efficient.
This thing looks absolutely sick. It's undeniably Mercedes, but a step towards a future design language that hints at the return of the wedge-shaped sports car. It has Aston Martin vibes, but not in a copying-the-other-guys homework way, and a satisfyingly long hood and dash-to-axle ratio. The classic Mercedes grill is pushed forward into an oval, concave form with an unusually understated badge. The two-part outlets on the hood aren't just for show — they are yet another cooling element for this hot ride. The long, low greenhouse tapers back for a particularly chonky back end that I absolutely love. Its taillights blaze like boosters on a spaceship, and in between is a very cool digital displayed showing the AMG logo in manufacturer provided images. That display is called the MBUX Fluid Light Panel, and it features more than 700 "freely programmable" RGB LEDS. Text or animation can be displayed in real time on the Fluid Light Panel, and communicate to the world content such as the AMG logo or current charging process. It would make quite the fancy "Just Married" sign on the back. The Fluid Light Panel is so cool that, if it gets carried to production, you know we won't have in the U.S. thanks to our backwards vehicle lighting rules.
"At 186 mph, approximately 83 percent of the drive energy is required to overcome drag. This shows how important efficient aerodynamics are in the high performance segment," Mercedes said in its press release. No matter how sick a car design is, it doesn't mean much if it ain't got that aero. Here, the GT XX is, predictably, no slouch. Everything is angled for aerodynamics of course, but the concept has plenty of form following function. With all the tinkering to the body, Mercedes engineers were able to cook up a car with a drag coefficient of just 0.198, which makes it among the lowest of any production vehicle. Apparently the complete absence of a rear windshield helps with this.
While the headlights might seem a little boring when compared to the new three-pointed star headlights we've seen from the brand (and which the production model will get) these headlights have a special trick: speakers. The Concept AMG GT XX integrates speakers directly into the headlights as another weight and space-saving innovation. They pump out driving sounds in order to keep pedestrians safe and make your super-sleek EV sound like something closer to the V8s we all know and love.
Like most high-end EV concepts, the cockpit is heavily focused on the driver. The almost entirely black interior really pops with elements of orange and aluminum. The driver gets two integrated LCD screens; a 10.25-inch instrument cluster and a 14-inch multimedia touchscreen. The steering column uses color to let the driver know when the regenerative braking is charging the vehicle or when the fun kind of driving is eating up all the charge. The up front seats are based on carbon fiber racing shells. Using 3D printing, Mercedes can form the seats in the Concept AMG GT XX to perfectly fit any ass. I look forward to rich people getting their backsides scanned at their local dealership. The seats are covered in advanced biotech "leather" made out of recycled rubber, vegetable proteins and biopolymers to recreate a real leather look and feel without all the animal murder. The LABFIBER Biotech Leather Alternative is even better than the real thing — this stuff is breathable and waterproof while keeping (you guessed it) cool even at the height of summer. And since the "leather" is derived from recycled materials it, too, is fully recyclable.
While the concept is a sedan, there's no headliner and the rear seats are basically moulded carbon fiber with an integrated cushion. Sounds less than comfortable but, let's face it, if you're sticking folks in the back of this vehicle, they aren't exactly your best friend. The interior also features an orange-and-black checkered flag pattern inside the doors, which Mercedes says is a nod to motorsports but I'm choosing to see as an unexpected influence of late 90s ska. That, along with the XX in the name, means this car is full of Millennial dogwhistle and you can not convince me otherwise. I also love the orange tubes of light that run along the center console and in the dash, meant to elicit images of high-voltage cables. It looks more to me like the future promised us in the movie "The Fifth Element."
The Concept AMG GT XX isn't "just a concept," it's the kind of car designers and engineers used to pen their greatest ambitions for the AMG brand and marks a step closer to the production model. It certainly doesn't look too far off from the future AMG GT 4-Door Coupe released by Mercedes in a shadowy, camo-clad photo shoot earlier this year. Surely some of this fun stuff will drop by the wayside for production models, but a girl can dream, right?