Has a recent hypercar had a more difficult gestation period than the Mercedes-AMG One? Putting a Formula 1 engine in a road car is a crazy idea, but the results are pretty nuts. We’re talking a Nürburgring lap time of six minutes and 29.09 seconds, the first type-approved road car to blast through the six-and-a-half minute mark. However, Mercedes engineers probably aren’t done resting yet. A TikTok video shows an example of the $2.8 million hypercar up in flames, and it’s not the first AMG One to get a bit too hot.
The AMG One in question sports German plates from Oldenburg, and if you had a hunch that this is a customer car, you’d likely be right. This exact example has made a few public appearances, with Exclusive Car Registry having a bunch of photos of this thing at Techno Classica Essen.
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It’s a gorgeous spec, emerald green over tan with bronze wheels, or at least it was before it seemingly burst into flames. With carbon fiber coachwork, things got pretty melty before the blaze was extinguished, but TikTok user chrimbu appears to have captured footage of the car when it was still alight.
@chrimbuAMG ONE ein heisser Sportwagen ????, wäre besser ohne Lithium Ion Akku????????♂️♬ The Sound of Silence (CYRIL Remix) – Disturbed
As painful as fire damage is, it feels like a hypercar rite of passage for one or two examples to self-immolate. Remember the Porsche 918 Spyder that caught fire while refuelling, or the LaFerrari that caught fire in Italy back in 2014? Likewise, this isn’t the first AMG One to burn down, as The Sun reported that one caught fire in a trailer back in 2023.
As for why this one caught fire, my best guess is that something got too hot as that’s how most fires in general start, and with a fiddly 1.6-liter Formula 1 V6 generating a ton of heat, tight packaging, and loads of complexity, it pretty much could’ve been anything that ignited. Remember, a handful of early Ferrari 458 Italias had a problem with glue catching fire. Glue.
Mercedes-AMG planned to build a mere 275 of these hypercars, so if two have been essentially destroyed by fire, we’re looking at a fire attrition rate of around three-quarters of a percent. That’s fairly significant, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Mercedes is investigating the cause of this incident. Beyond ensuring customer satisfaction, hypercars like this are brand builders, so there’s incentive for the marque to do what it can in an attempt to keep as many on the road as possible.
Top graphic credit: TikTok/Chrimbu
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Perhaps the engineers at AMG are devoted Wagnerians and the cars are designed for immolation.
Damn shame, it’s one of my favorite recent ultra cars from a engineering stand point and I love that they had the gonads to actually do what they set out to do!
That green paint ain’t green enough to my taste. I wouldn’t have bought it used off craigslist in 20 (200?) years anyway
I wonder if spontaneous combusting is covered by the warranty. If not, I hope they got that Asurian insurance with their Hi-Tech toy. As long as the moisture indicator strip isn’t red, they get a new one shipped to them in two days!
BTW, I love how no one is expressing sympathy for the owner and these are some of the funniest comments I’ve seen in a while. Keep ’em coming!
I’m glad I saw this article in time. I was jut about to plunk a semi filled with gold bars down as a down payment on one.
Whew! that was a close one!
And somehow this will be an excuse to raise all of our auto insurance rates. Just watch.
And all this time, I thought “Adjustment for California Wildfires” was a Ferrari reference. Well played, Allstate.
Aren’t they supposed to keep the explosions inside the engine?
This kind of furthers my belief that this whole project was well-intentioned but also a colossal failure. It’s such a severely compromised road car.
My thoughts exactly. It’s a really cool idea, and I’m glad that AMG actually pulled it off (sort of), but the thing is just so complex… It’s a goddamn spaceship. They had to make so many compromises to adhere to the “road going F1 car” ethos, they ended up building something that’s essentially an incredibly expensive novelty that’s not particularly good at fulfilling its purpose.
Well aren’t half of these HYPER ULTRA RARE PERFORMANCE cars basically the same thing? I mean sure they all go fast, look amazing do wiz bamg stuff and mayyyybe some owners will use them “as intended” but at the end of the day they’re just show pieces to show off how much money and “taste” the owners have… although I suppose that same thing can be argued for a lot of cars and trucks these days
On the other hand, the NSX was only in development for 4 years and was a success.
Catching fire on the streets of Oldenburg is way cooler than sitting in a bubble in a sheikh’s basement, slowly dry rotting away.
They keep this up they might get lumped in with Tesla.
if you wanna beat ferrari,
you gotta be like ferrari
All the freaking hot/fire/blazing songs known to mankind and the tictoker chooses a lame cover of a lame cover of Sounds of Silence?!?
C’mon!
“Blaze of Glory”
“Fire Woman”
376,592 versions of “Fire”
“Heat of the Moment”
“The Heat is On”
“Hot in the City”
“Hot! Hot! Hot!”
“Disco Inferno” (okay, maybe save this for a Land Rover)
and 3.2 trillion others I don’t have time to list.
I thought the same thing until the song stopped. Pretty sure he was actually listening to that in his car. A techno mixed cover of a cover. Definitely Europe.
No love for “ring of fire”?
They will all start on fire until only 1 remains… Unlike the Toyota Highlander, there can only be One!
So does this make it 3 or 4 AMG power units failing in just as many weeks? I remember Antonelli from this weekend noticing that a trend is starting, but not the one(s) before other than something happened.
And the first pic of this car on the ECR link has apparently been updated to show it on fire…
To maintain realism, GTAV will institute a 0.75% chance of fire whenever a player races in a Krieger.
Laughing at a multi-million-dollar car burning on TikTok to the sound of an EDM remix of a Disturbed song is the most redneck thing I’ve seen all week…and it’s from Germany.
Me: surely it can’t get worse than Disturbed
Europe: how about an EDM remix of Disturbed?
Me: there is no god
I’ve never been able to figure out if German musical taste is ironically terrible or just terrible.
Definitely both.
Maybe my taste is terrible, but I do like some Rammstein and Peter Fox.
I’m in Germany right now. The music on the radio is like 99.9% the worst shit ever made with a surprising banger every 3 hours or so.
Radio BOB is the only option, if you have DAB or you’re in the north. Die Neue 107.7 is listenable too if in the south.
But if you think music on German radio is terrible, you should hear the shit they play on TV music shows…
Yeah that’s typically where we park it. Have to stomach through Nickelback and Creed though.
Two words: David Hasselhoff
He is basically a god to the older generation.
I always thought that was a hot looking car.
Also, why do I have that song from Queen playing in my head? Must be the verbiage on the top shot.
“Another one.” — DJ Khaled
All I can say is, arrrrr naaaarrrr