Mercedes AMG GT43

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Supercar Taste in a Four Door Platter
Life is often about compromises. You've seen the mega supercar known as the Mercedes Benz AMG GT Coupe blister around racetracks, looking like Batman's latest ride. The purpose-built race car is a track weapon that takes no prisoners. You might gaze at it with not-so-subtle longing, but the fact is, there's no real room for groceries in the swift two-seater, much less the kids and the dog.

Enter In

Enter the Mercedes AMG GT43 and GT53. Here we have four door sedans that are great for moving the family around but that still offer genuine high-performance thrills. You even have a choice of a bench seat to squeeze in three in the back or two bucket seats. Though this Mercedes may look all classy and sedate in the driveway, it will bring you the handling and steering prowess of an AMG sports car.
 
The GT43 comes with an intercooled, turbocharged gasoline/electric 3-liter all-wheel drive powertrain that produces 362 horsepower, while the more racey GT53 bumps the horses up to 429 eager stallions, ready to get your groceries home plenty quick.
I know that the combination of powertrain elements sounds crazy. I mean, a turbocharged 3-liter inline six married to an intercooler and a mild hybrid system may seem like a contraption from some steam punk, Jules Verne nightmare. But take it from us, it works!
 
Basically, the AMG GT series offers race-inspired performance in a luxury package that still has all the comfort and frills you'd expect from a piece of German precision that wears the Mercedes badge. For 2022 AMG brings you more ways to make your GT uniquely your own with a wider choice of vehicle colors, wheel options, upholstery combinations, and interior trims. Because the average GT driver is looking for both sport and comfort, they have retuned the suspension to offer the best of both worlds. The Driver Assistance Package adds adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist and blind-spot monitoring to Mercedes' already plentiful suite of safety features. Something that is actually called the "Warmth and Comfort Package," includes a heated steering wheel, heated armrests up front, and rapid heating of the front seats.

Under the Hood

Both the GT43 and the GT53 give you a hearty inline-six-cylinder engine that includes a turbocharger, an intercooler, an electric supercharger, and an electric motor, all working together for more oomph and better fuel economy. As mentioned above, the GT43 produces 362 horsepower, while the GT53 adds more charging hooves to the 3-liter package for a combined 429 horsepower, whisking you from zero to 60 miles per hour in four seconds. That's quick enough to slosh your groceries around and break a few eggs. 

Speaking of, we found the sport-tuned suspension to be a delight. More on that later. The EPA has rated the GT43 at 19 miles per gallon in the city and 24 miles per gallon on the highway. Not bad for such a quick spirited car.

On the Inside

As with all Mercedes sedans, the GT offers a winning combination of futuristic sci-fi cool mixed with high-end luxury. Posh materials abound in the cockpit, sharing the feel of the automaker's excellent CLS model. But this is a sports-oriented four door coupe, and as such, performance edges out some of the more luxury sedan elements. I'm talking about the snug rear seats. Here we have a car that really fits four adults if you choose the bolstered leather sports seats.
 
When it comes to hauling groceries, this is a hatchback and that means the rear seats fold down to give you more room for produce such as watermelons and cabbage. Even with the rear seats up, there's 12.7 cubic feet of storage. However, being a hatchback, the roof slants down and that means tall passengers sitting in the back may notice their heads scrapping the headliner.
Up front, the GT has one of those odd, flat bottomed, very grippy steering wheels and paddle shifters and there's also a rather large console between the seats with more than a nod to the GT Roadster. A nice touch is that you can change driving modes without taking your hands off the wheel.
 
A 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen offers a wide array of high-tech goodies. If you have any small children, they can play with the 64-color ambient lighting controls until you feel ill. Wi-Fi is available as well as wireless phone charging and there's even a rear-seat central touchscreen in the back. It all makes you feel like you're in a fighter plane but maybe that's the whole point. Much like BMW's M line of performance sedans, luxury is reined in a bit to make way for pure, driving thrills.

On the Road

The first thing you notice when you start up the GT is the rich and throaty rumble of the engine through the quad exhaust tips. It is a wonderful sound, popping and burbling when you are giving the throttle a workout. The nine-speed automatic transmission does a stunning job. The shifting is seamless when cruising and race-worthy when you engage the paddle shifters and punch it.
 
In Sport+ Mode, the GT53 we tested was capable of neck-cracking speed and the all-wheel drive setup makes sure all that electrically enhanced torque hits the pavement instantly. The sport-tuned suspension handles the Jekyll and Hyde transitions from sport to comfort and back again with the greatest of ease.
 
How serious is Mercedes about this car's race pedigree? Serious enough to take it to the Nürburgring track where it set the all-out lap record for executive cars with a lap time of 7 minutes and 27.8 seconds.
Though it is a big four door coupe that weighs over 4,500 pounds, the GT53 is incredibly nimble, and the steering is magnificent. You can get on power instantly with the 4matic system, which is a great all-wheel drive solution for performance driving. The braking is silky smooth even under extreme conditions, inspiring confidence. On backroads, this thing is a pure joy. It can vault up a hill producing torquey thrills, and then, in "Comfort Mode," tool around town like the silky-smooth Mercedes luxury sedan that it is.
 

The Bottom Line
It wasn't long ago that when a wife told her husband that they were expecting, he would trade-in his Corvette for a minivan. The owner of a new Mercedes AMG GT43 or GT53 will never feel the loss of losing his sports car for a practical family car. That's really the whole point of this exercise in show and go. This is both a capable AMG sports car and a Mercedes four door luxury sedan. It's even a hatchback! No matter which role this car may be playing for you and yours, at the end of the day, this is a Mercedes that you'll want to keep driving… after all, you've got to get those groceries home.
 
Find yours at the Lithia Motors Mercedes dealership near you.



Mercedes Benz AMG GT43
MSRP starts at $93,550.
 
Mercedes Benz AMG GT53
MSRP starts at $102,600.