It's maxed out!
Küüübleeer!
Welcome to my humble abode. My name is Raz.
I'm @rokenr from Instagram
and sometimes known by some of you as "Mister AMG".
This is another Instagramer
who focuses on AMG as well.
His name is Tristan.
He's @amg_tdso and we're both part of the
YouTube channel known as RemoveBeforeRace.
And basically we are AMG addicts.
This year we are traveling all the way up to Affalterbach
in Germany and this trip is going to be really exciting.
Because in convoy
we are going to be taking not one
but two special editions
specifically made for the 50 years of AMG!
Now we wished they were the hypercar "Project One"
but they're not. But they're the next best thing.
And we're going to show you that car right now!
So that car is...
the AMG GT C Edition 50 coupé
and it's going to be driven by Tristan
Tristan, we've made some changes on this for this trip, haven't we?
We have indeed. We've made a few changes.
I myself am going to be the lucky owner
of an Edition 50 in the next couple of weeks.
Well, yours has arrived in fact! – It has arrived.
It arrived yesterday.
Not in time for this trip
but.. you know, I'm very lucky to be able to drive this one.
There are only 25 of these coming to the UK.
My good friend Raz has one, myself...
and our good friend David has another.
We've made a couple of "homage additions"
to this car.
You notice the special "50 years of AMG" stripe here,
which has been appearing
a lot this year on AMG cars around the range.
There's a little homage inside
with a slight change in seatbelt colour here
which adds a little pop to the inside, we think.
And we've also done a similar 50 year stripe across the wing mirrors.
We didn't want to change too much
and this was all done by the
UK performance studio called ROK Studio.
But we wanted it just to look a little bit different for our trip.
We were also very kindly given an E 63 S wagon,
which in my opinion is the ultimate roadtrip car
that you could get in terms of an AMG form.
So that is this car and it's very kindly been lent to us
by Mercedes-Benz UK.
And we've also again added the "Edition One" stripes on the side
a bit of livery in terms of our own user names and whatnot.
But this is all for the #AMGroadtrip2017.
And you're probably wondering why
I've got an AMG showroom in my house.
And the reason for that is: I basically can't
stop buying them. Which is not a bad thing.
This is my daily drive, which is
the Mercedes-AMG E 63 S 4MATIC+.
This is the Edition One
as you can see from the magno night black.
Incredible! It's in the 600+ horsepower club.
What else have we got? We've got some more interesting things here.
This is Tristan's "Semi-AMG" as I like to call it. It's actually a BRABUS smart.
The fully tuned version. It's a cool car!
It's a cool car and it's going to get cooler soon
so keep an eye on his Instagram.
And furthermore... what else do we have?
Ah, my favorite...
This is the king of the hill as far as I'm concerned.
This is the Beast of the Green Hell itself –
the AMG GT R.
And although I called the E 63 my daily,
genuinely I tend to use this a lot more.
Because as Tobias Moers said when he unveiled the car:
the car has got the daily usability of a normal AMG GT
but it's got all that GT3 track performance as well.
As long as they keep making them,
I'm going to keep buying them!
This one. This one is a special little car.
This is for my little son
and he doesn't say this is his car.
He will refer to this as Daddy's car and...
THAT is his car!
And it's best if I don't argue with him on that point.
There's a little trick for you guys.
If you're ever planning your own road trip into Europe.
Eurotunnel is notorious for getting your wheels damaged.
But what we've done is: if you book with either
a roof box or like a bicycle rack
you get put into the larger cabin.
So if you look here
we've got huge amounts of space
between the kerb and the wheel
which means that there's no hassle, there's no tension
and if you come in enough cars, you get the whole carriage to yourself as well.
Which is fantastic!
How many times did you fuel the car at all?
Since the start of the journey? Twice.
Not bad at all.
So averaging about 21 miles to the gallon
according to the Mercedes me app.
I haven't really let it go below sort of half a tank,
a quarter of a tank,
while it's running in.
It was built on my daughter's birthday,
on the 5th of September,
which is really special.
It really means a lot to us in the family
and my daughter absolutely adores it.
She's eight and refers to as "Daddy's noisy car".
About a year ago I saw a few
pictures of this special edition
and they said that there was only going to be
500 worldwide of the coupés and 500 worldwide of the roadsters.
And we didn't know how many would come to the UK.
Maybe around June time I said: am I getting one?
And they said: Yes, of course you're getting one. I was like: Oh my goodness!
I didn't know! So then I started to get very excited
and it arrived in the UK two days ago.
It's ready for me when I get back to the UK
but not in time for this trip.
I started as an apprentice technician
straight from school at 16
at my local Mercedes-Benz dealer in England.
And I did my training there for ten years as a technician
working on the cars.
I remember it was 1989 and the 129 SL had just been launched.
My love for Mercedes has been since I was a young child growing up in Germany.
I think it goes all the way back to my grandfather.
He was a man who was really into his cars and his ultimate car was
always the Mercedes-Benz. But he could never quite afford one.
But even in his day and age when he was a younger man
he would factory-order cars and come to Germany to collect them. I think it was Opel that
he would buy. That's all he could afford. But that was the closest thing to him
getting that experience of coming down to Stuttgart or Germany and picking up a car.
When my father was older and earning more, this was already ingrained
in him and he already had a love for Mercedes-Benz. Every year he would buy my
grandfather a new C-Class. And my grandfather just loved it. He would come
outside and he was famous for getting one cloth and cleaning the whole car.
Just spending half an hour to an hour just cleaning the car.
Just watching that passion between the two of them that it was
inevitably gonna fall into me.
I would confess I've not always been a Mercedes-AMG lover.
I didn't know much about them until maybe about 10 years ago.
And the first thing that struck me about AMG particularly
is the emotion that they managed to get into their cars
that I never found in any other type of car.
My father was in the British military and we were based
in Osnabrück in Northern Germany. I grew up there and went to school there.
My dad used to take me to the dealership at the weekend
and I used to go and have a look at the car and take all the brochures.
It was always a running joke at school:
all my friends have pictures of girls on their walls and I had pictures
of Mercedes-Benz on my walls.
My wife used to work for Mercedes-Benz. That's how we met.
We met through Mercedes-Benz. She worked for the dealer in Jersey
and I worked for a Mercedes-Benz dealer in the UK.
And we used to swap cars between each other,
so we have Mercedes-Benz to thank for us meeting.
And you know, my daughter
has a real love for "Cedes", as she calls them.
Before she was born, I wanted to
call her Mercedes for her middle name. And my wife said: not really.
So we called her Grace, which is the Spanish translation for Mercedes.
Is it?
Mercedes in Spanish means grace, so my daughter's middle name is Grace.
So I've still got that little link to Mercedes with my daughter.
I'm from London. I have an American mother, a French father,
and I work in financial services.
I'm a chief executive officer and I have a love of cars.
The first AMG I owned was a C 63 Coupé
507 edition.
That was my first AMG.
And I really loved that car. I actually regret selling it I should have kept that one.
In terms of Mercedes-Benz, I think my first car was a A 140
which used to have the clutchless manual. Do your emember the semi automatics?
Actually my mom has such a car now. It's a 169 series, the second A-Class, right?
Yes, that was the first one. And I went on from that to a C 180 Coupé.
And then my first big purchase was a CLS 320. When they first came out – the newer CDIs.
And that was a beautiful car. It was the first four-door coupé in the world.
And I was always into my Mercedes-Benz diesels. But then my first foray into AMG was
selling the CLS and buying a SLK 55 compressor. And this was that design
which had the SLR type nose.
And I fell in love with that car
and ever since it's been it's been AMG all the way.
My first one was an SL 55 with the 5.5 compressor.
And then after that I had an SL 63. And I had two 63s:
an obsidian black and a silver.
And then after that I had the CLS 63 Coupé
and my wife had a C 63 Estate. The first one in the 204 model.
Quite a few
You just get addicted to the whole thing, the whole experience.
It's very very emotional!
So really from the SLK onwards I just climbed up into various different AMGs
I then went into the first ever C 63: the W204.
Had a number of those and
as we all know: they are pretty much the purest form of AMG of that time.
Naturally aspirated motor. Naturally aspirated 6.2 liter. Absolutely phenomenal car and again
it just built up that addiction.
And then the SLS came out and, honestly
I was a very young man at the time, this was back in 2010.
And I just went for it. I ordered one.
I got it in "AMG Le Mans red"
with the black and porcelain interior.
It was very much the launch spec.
And what a car that was!
Just incredible! With the gullwing doors, the 6.3 liter naturally aspirated engine.
Amazing! I sold that eventually
and I went into another one, which was "alubeam silver".
Do you remember the liquid metal finish cars? - Yes!
Probably my favorite spec'd car ever. It was that color,
until you see it in person... I think they use it, if I'm not wrong, in some of the concept cars.
In every concept car I think, yes.
Well, I wish it was available a bit more readily.
It is such a fantastic color. It shows off the curves
in a way that I don't think any other color, metallic or magno, can.
I had a C 63 S Edition 1 Coupé
and I loved that car.
It was my daily car really.
And I bought that after the 507
but when the opportunity came up for the Edition 50,
I knew it wasn't really a car I wanted to drive every day.
Because with work and things like this
it would stay in the car park for long parts of the day.
I wanted something fun and a little bit quirky to sit alongside the Edition 50.
I bought a smart forfour BRABUS
which is really fun actually.
That is gonna be kind of my daily runaround car
and then for the weekends and for fun I get to play with the Edition 50.
I think the nice thing for me, you know, with my love of AMG
and having owned so many,
the opportunity to own this special car
"50 year anniversary" car and a GT
you know, which is AMG's own product.
They developed this car from the ground up.
It's not a Mercedes-Benz that's been re-engineered
and rebadged as an AMG.
This is only an AMG!
And that's really special for me
and that's what means so much.
One of the amazing things about this trip for me is
obviously I have my own Edition 50, which has now arrived
but I'm driving an almost identical car; well, it is an identical car
and I'm having this long test drive to really familiarize myself
and get to know the car.
I'm convoying or following another Edition 50
belonging to David, which gives me the perspective of being able to see my car in motion.
It's a very unique perspective
for a soon-to-be owner of a car to be able to see all of this
and it's really exciting.
Also the car is so rare, you will never otherwise see this.
Exactly!
As I said before: only 500 for the world, only 25 in the UK.
So it's not a car you're going to see very much. And here I am with with two of them.
It's a lot of fun.
I'm very excited to drive our GT C. which is just finished running in.
Yes.
It's done the thousand miles,
while you guys were in the car in fact.
Yes, Tristan already floored it a little bit.
Yeah?
You're not smiling at all! How's that?
It's not my car!
I have to concentrate!
If I'm accelerating, I will build up gently
and just keep it at a comfortable level for the car
while the engine is just bedding in.
And then after a thousand miles I'll tend to use the
Sport or Sport+ modes
and do a little bit more sort of a harder acceleration.
1500 kilometers. According to this, this is now run in.
We have completed the running in instructions.
Ah, they are there.
I didn't know that it has these instructions on the window.
Yes, it has the instructions.
Strangely the GT C also needs a differential oil change
at 1875 miles, which the other GTs don't.
So it seems to be unique to the GT C.
Maybe I put into Sport+.
Now!
Yes, this is what it's about.
We better not tell Raz I did that!
I did about 500 miles in the UK,
just its first few miles.
And just hearing the sound and the sound change...
It was quite quiet when we first picked it up.
Then the sound began to build over time,
same with the throttle response.
Some people don't really value the art of running in as much
but it does make a really big difference for the car.
Well, these parts have to be running in first.
All the alloys have to get into perfect harmony
That's why there is a running-in phase
so that everything conforms.
For a piston - if you really want to get in-depth - this means the following:
Pistons have oil scraper rings and compression rings
which are coated. The bore is coated, too.
Therefore the piston must not run at 5,000 or 6,000 rpm
inside the crankcase right from the beginning.
Instead it should be gently running in.
There's one thing that all three of us wanted:
it was a Kübler engine! And we said:
is there anything we can do to get a Kübler engine?
And they said: you can't! It's just the way they are.
You know, you can't guarantee.
You can't pick who does your engine for you.
The engine is being assembled at our manufacture
gets the signature plaque of its builder
but from that point on we don't know much about its whereabouts.
The engine is being sent to the assembly plant
and installed into the car.
For the ordinary employee it is virtually impossible to know
in which car exactly it ended up.
We personally don't get to see that.
The best moments - especially for me
as an engine builder - are those
when a customer took a picture of that engine and gets in touch
and you get to see your own signature plaque.
That's really a motivation
to always give your very best.
It makes you proud!
Mike is an absolute legend, as we all know.
But he's a really just a warm, lovely person as well
He's one of the only guys that makes the engines for the
Pagani supercars or hypercars, as they really are.
In my case it was really skyrocketing.
I started off from scratch like everyone else on Instagram
and meanwhile I have 195,000 followers.
Over 3,000 customers are following me.
There are people in their mid-sixties like my father,
who asked their son for help signing up with Instagram
just to get in touch with me
and to thank me for having built their engine
and that's just plain cool!
As a joke, we all took a photo of the engine plaque
from Mike Kübler and we put them on the engines and said "Küüübleeer"
I don't know if G. De Giuseppe would be very happy
but Mike tells me he's a very good engineer, so I'm alright.
Hopefully I'll get to meet him on Tuesday.
Because I met all my engine builders.
My C 63 was Dominic Stark
and I met him last year.
So I become friends with him now, which is really great
because I think it's nice for the engine builders.
They don't see what car their engine goes into.
So I think it's nice for them to see where their engine has ended up
and I think, again, that's where social media is fantastic.
Some of the people on Instagram, you know,
I've never met them! But we've been talking
for years and so they are friends.
We get to meet them and spend time
and talk about life and cars.
That's the most important thing.
On all these trips,
as soon as we cross the border into Germany
my heart is like "yes, I'm back home almost"
It does feel like home!
Now enjoy!
This is the time, isn't it?
Be our guest!
I'm not used to this, you see?
It feels so unnatural to me.
What I find amazing, and you guys might be used to, is
how unfazed the car is
It's almost like I'm still driving at,
you know, 130 kilometers an hour.
And it helps that your roads are so good as well.
Well, it's also
at the end of the day it's also a matter of common sense for the drivers.
It's based on the trust in Germany, yet on the trust,
that people know what they are doing.
I've seen a big change in driving style.
Whenever I come to Europe,
going through France into Germany,
everybody knows how to use the motorways correctly.
Everybody sticks in the right lane. When it's time to overtake,
that's the only time they'll come into the faster lane,
which is how it should be. And it's not necessarily the case in all of the world.
We struggle with that quite a lot in the UK, where people are just in the wrong lanes.
But there is, generally speaking, quite a good discipline that I've seen
in Europe. That trust element, it makes sense!
The rate of accident speaks for itself.
Our rates in the UK are much higher
and yet we drive a maximum of 70 miles per hour
and even that is in the major motorways to be honest.
I don't think one is directly correlating with the other one.
Yes!
This is crazy!
The car just doesn't care. It's so easy for it.
Incredible!
It's like you said though: you have to be awake!
And you are awake, you are aware
and that's why there's less chance of making mistakes.
It stops at 261.
It's maxed out!
It's like coming home.
I've only been here twice
but every time I come back
to Affalterbach it's like being
right back at home.
It's like, I know the air, I know the surroundings.
You feel like just kissing the ground.
It's amazing! I love it! I love coming here.
...and it's signed! Wow! Look at that!
This kind of brand loyalty is probably unique.
Not just in Germany, but way beyond.
This meet-up has been organized privately by us
I guess we'll have a blast today!
The event itself exists in its fifth year now
it started off with just the three of us.
That is Beatrice from Hamburg
and Ahmed from Egypt.
My name is Beatrice.
I'm known on Instagram as „tt4561",
which relates to this license plate.
It all began when I ordered my car.
This one!
It was in July and I had in mind
to attend one of these tours AMG is offering.
In this case the Emotion Tour
to test-drive some more cars.
So I booked it.
I came here with the old A-Class
and bashfully parked somewhere down the road
because driving up here without an AMG felt inappropriate.
A couple of months later she posted pictures of so many AMGs
like the ones that we have around us
So I asked: what is this? Where does this happen?
And she said there's an event that happens every year.
They announce the dates.
It happens like four times a year
and if you'd be interested I'll let you know.
And that's what happened. And I came the first time.
She came to pick me up from the airport
and she told me: Michael Kübler is coming.
And I figured out who Michael Kübler was
because a couple of friends of mine had G-Wagons
with engines made by Kübler.
Right now we have an AMG GT3 race engine here.
The engine is based on the SLS
but it's modified for the new AMG GT3 race car
so we have a higher compression, different pistons, a different crankshaft
different cylinder heads, con-rod. So it's highly modified for the new race car.
The output could be around about over 700 horsepower
for a naturally aspirated that is really much.
But in case of the GT3 rules we are air-restricted.
There's a balance of performance
and the balance of performance is taking the cars on the same level.
We have different brands with different types of cars, different types of engines.
For us it's not not really a bad thing
because we can run a higher revision time.
Cleaning, changing parts,
and rebuilding it.
That is after 20,500 race kilometers, which is really much!
When we talk about the others: round about 5,000 race kilometers is
when they have to make a revision.
The build time for a GT3 engine is round about three days.
One and a half days only to make measurements.
I have to collect all the data: the compression
and such and I have to show it
on every engine for the regulation.
You want to come closer?
Here you see the pistons, this is a chain
so the engine is running and turning.
Here you have the pistons on the crankshaft and the pistons go up and down.
The pistons are these.
We're here in front of a film icon
This is the Autobot Drift
from the movie: Transformers - The Last Knight.
If you're wondering what he looked like on film
when transformed: that's him!
Really cool little toy!
So this is actually a pre-production AMG GT R.
Before the customer cars and the press cars were developed,
this car was given to the film makers and they were allowed
to do the livery and turn it into the Autobot Drift.
There are some things that are different on it compared to the production car.
Nothing too significant.
Stuff like the Mercedes-Benz badge being the old-style one
as opposed to the black badges.
It's really cool and it's great to see
this black and red theme alongside
our Drogon, who's also got a black and red theme going on
in terms of the #AMG50years.
So the two are really matching up quite well.
And on this side we have...
When the AMG GT facelift was announced,
these two cars specifically were shown, too,
for the press and for the public.
This is the actual solarbeam yellow AMG GT S,
shown in the press shots
alongside @jsyamg's Edition 50.
This has been a pretty cool honor for us,
to sit here on the hill next to the Mercedes-Benz Museum
and to show you a film icon
alongside our very special Edition 50s.
I'll tell you what: there's nothing more amazing than bringing something like the
Edition 50, a car that is to celebrate 50 years of AMG, and to bring it back to
the places that are most synonymous with AMG, Affalterbach earlier today, now the
Mercedes-Benz Museum, which is an absolute monument to Mercedes-Benz.
There can't be anything better, what do you think, Dave?
Absolutely! Couldn't agree more.
I think, to finish the day off here at the Museum
at the steps of the original factory in Untertürkheim
where it all started, is an absolute honor.
Absolute honor! And I couldn't have had a better day.
Fantastic! Good German food. - It's amazing.
Enjoy your meal, gentlemen! - Thank you!
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