As you’re drifting off to sleep, there are things you want to envision and things you definitely don’t want stuck in your head. A mental image of fluffy sheep nimbly hopping a fence is welcome, but something that looks like a creature from the depths? Absolute nightmare fuel. When the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe debuted late last night, I thought it looked like a catfish raised entirely on a diet of bong water. Now that I’ve had a few hours to come to grips with the design, guess what? It’s somehow worse than it first appeared.
Right, before we dig into what makes this car so hideous, it’s time for some context. In 2014, Mercedes-Benz revealed a front-mid-engined coupe called the AMG GT and it was glorious. Seeking to cash in on that brand equity with the shamelessness of a comic book film, 2019 saw Mercedes-AMG rework the E-Class platform into a five-door liftback called the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe, which essentially became the de facto replacement for the CLS. With a choice of straight-six or V8 power, it had some muscle behind the posturing and looked handsome enough.
However, for the second-generation AMG GT 4-Door Coupe, Mercedes-AMG is going electric – just as the sort of people who buy six-figure luxury performance cars are expressing a thirst for the internal combustion engine. It’s definitely a bold move, one that probably would’ve been more successful five years ago, but it’s hard to deny that the specifications are impressive.
Specs like 1,153 horsepower. Yep, a one, then a comma, then another one, followed by a five and a three. A three-piece array of axial flux motors imbues the top-spec Mercedes-AMG GT 63 4-Door Coupe with output to rival the 1,234-horsepower Lucid Air Sapphire and the 1,019-horsepower Porsche Taycan Turbo GT. Granted, there is a caveat here: Full power is only unlocked during launch control at 80 percent state of charge. Still, when the stars align, Mercedes-AMG claims it can sprint from zero to 60 mph in two seconds flat, which is quicker than you can say the name of the vehicle, and it’ll allegedly run from a dead stop to 124 MPH in a mere 6.4 seconds. Oh, and the motors themselves are tiny, with the front motor measuring 3.5 inches wide and the rear motors each measuring 3.2 inches wide.
If that’s far too much, there is a lesser Mercedes-AMG GT 53 4-Door Coupe on offer with a mere 805 horsepower. You know, sensible grocery-getter stuff. Beyond shock-and-awe output, this EV features serious cooling capacity, rides on triple-adjustable air springs, steers all four wheels, offers multi-stage traction control, and can be optioned with interlinked hydraulic dampers for active roll stabilization. The battery pack boasts 106 kWh of usable capacity, and there’s silly 600 kW DC fast charging capability that will be a struggle to exploit in the real world due to most fast chargers tapping out at or below 350 kW. There’s even a drive mode with fake shifts and a simulated V8 soundtrack, a bit like what you get in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N.
It’s certainly a monumental technological showcase for Mercedes-AMG, but there’s one big problem: This car redefines the word ‘gopping’ because in just about every way, it’s the most hideous thing to ever feature an AMG badge. Let’s start at the front, where a number of sins are committed.
For the past eight years or so, the so-called Panamericana grille with its vertical slats has been a Mercedes-AMG trademark. At face value, that’s fine, but the integration here leaves a lot to be desired. It seems extruded from the bumper, which introduces a whole lot of strange surfacing. If you look at other upper grille-less cars like the Porsche 911 or the Xiaomi SU7, you’ll notice that where the hood tapers down at the front, the upper edge of the bumper continues the same curvature before increasing its severity as it transitions to a vertical plane.
This AMG GT 4-Door Coupe does the opposite of that, like it’s got a permanent Kylie Jenner lip kit on. To sort of cheat this transition, Mercedes-AMG has gone with the most loathed visual element of the moment, a light bar spanning both headlights that looks like something you could buy off of AliExpress. Oh, and of course, the headlights have three-pointed stars in them, as if the dinner plate-sized emblem in the grille wasn’t enough. The end result isn’t simply a catfish mouth. If you cover either the headlights or the lower bumper, this thing looks like two different cars. That’s not attractive, full-stop.
In contrast to the front, perhaps the profile of the new AMG GT 4-Door Coupe being a bit generic isn’t a terrible thing. It has the same sort of modest dash-to-axle, upward lower flank crease, strong haunches, and sloping roofline we’ve seen from a litany of other electric sedans, although again, the devil is in the details. Each extreme of the greenhouse features a slab of plastic, and while the modestly sized triangle simulating a quarter window is relatively inoffensive, a small quarter-light would’ve been more tasteful than the triangle of plastic in the front door window aperture.
Right, brief break from visual whiplash over, onto the rear, which is about as minging as the nose. That taillight configuration is truly something else. Six round elements, one three-piece arc over the top, smoked horizontal elements presumably for indicators and reversing lights, all set into a giant sea of shiny black plastic. So much shiny plastic, the round elements with their garish inlaid three-pointed stars look lost in a void. It looks like the back of the car is wearing ski goggles, and that’s not even the bit that really annoys me.
The Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe is going to be an expensive car. Pricing hasn’t been released yet, but the old combustion-powered model tops out north of $200,000. Given the inclusion of a panoramic moonroof, why couldn’t Mercedes-AMG paint the strip of trim between the moonroof and the rear window black for a cohesive look? It’s been done before on the W213 E-Class, Volkswagen offers a more extensive and expensive painted treatment on the current Golf R’s roof to match the tinted moonroof, so why couldn’t Mercedes-AMG finish this detail off properly on its five-door flagship?
In case you were expecting this thing’s gurning mouth and unresolved arse to give way to a gorgeous interior, you may want to temper your expectations, because everything is computer. Quite literally, there’s not one physical control on the entire face of the dashboard, with a three-screen array dominating everything like dropping an entire bottle of the sort of hot sauce you’d find at Ace Hardware into a bowl of oatmeal. You do get some drive mode selectors and a small bank of controls for stuff like hazard warning lamps and stereo volume in the console, but the sheer reliance on screens really cheapens the cabin of the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe. The metal speaker grilles, quilted leather door card inserts, and exposed carbon console are utterly lost in the digital assault.
Now granted, there have been cars with stars on the front unveiled to a dearth of applause. Stories from the debut of the R231 SL recount an awkward silence after the sheet was lifted, and the Dodge Intrepid-shaped EQS didn’t exactly set the world alight. However, being mocked on debut is a new one. I posted two photos of the new AMG GT 4-Door Coupe to my own Instagram story, and as you’d expect, it was viewed by many colleagues. Perhaps the most suitable reaction came from a very respected auto writer via private DMs, which have been anonymized to protect the guilty:
“Wait, this is real?”
Unfortunately.
“Holy shit.”
Indeed, the overarching reaction to this engineering marvel is one of incredulity that Mercedes-AMG would release something this visually unresolved, this garish, this bewilderingly fish-faced. From a marque that’s staked over a century of reputation on elegance, letting a car like this out of the studio is embarrassing. Mind you, this was always going to be a low-volume car, and Mercedes-AMG only needs a few dissenting opinions for the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe to be a modest success. As Autopian editor-in-chief David Tracy wrote in Slack, “I think it looks fantastic.”
Top graphic image: Mercedes-AMG
First look initiated a facial recoil accompanied by a sound somewhere between “ew,” “yuck,” and “yeesh”. Have stylists been replaced by AI? The last decade or so has seen so many outright repellant designs from various makers that some hideous deep sea creature should probably be evoked to describe it. They could sell this for a tenth that price and I still wouldn’t be interested.
It actually reminds me a lot of all those AI slop cars that used to pop up in my feed… “The new 2027 Karmann Ghia is blowing people’s minds!”
Yikes
I prefer the term prolapsed because it’s provocative, it gets the people going. Also matches the level of disgust I feel when looking at either end of this thing. I actually don’t hate the 3-point star DRLs, but continuing them into the taillights takes it too far for me.
Also what do you have against Ace Hardware hotsauce?!? Heresy.
I kind of like it. And I’m not sure why.
Maybe because it has color – unlike the monotonous sea of grey/black/white cars.
Or because the front-end looks like comically bright and cheerful blobfish villain. And not another angry Jeep Royale with Cheese.
This is peak car “derp”. There’s literally no reason to connect the headlights, it does nothing for the design other than make it more hideous. What a mess.
Unibrow
Yeah, exactly correct
they saw that pic of the poor blobfish on dry land and said “yes! this is it!”
The poor blobfish actually looks pretty neat in its natural habitat.
Which makes me wonder…what is this car’s natural habitat, and what does it look like there?
Anyone else see a tad of the Opel GT in the rear end?
I want a “Torch-ian” deep dive into that tail light design.
And, yes ugly as Beeeeeeeeeeeeep.
It’s like an unholy mashup of a current Hyundai Sonata and a 2010’s Lotus Elise but with MOAR STARZ.
Yeah, I was seeing a little of the Ferrari GTB/4 Daytona in the back, except for the plastic I don’t mind that part so much. Still a fugly exercise in design but better than any new BMW.
My first thought was AMC matador. I see your opel GT, but this is so much more ungainly (less gainly?)
I worry such a deep dive may send Jason to the hospital.
What’s funny is that the old line “when you’re inside it, at least you don’t have to look at it” doesn’t even apply anymore because Mercedes has thoughtfully put a picture of its gawping mug on the center screen.
“ Oh, and the motors themselves are tiny, with the front motor measuring 3.5 inches wide and the rear motors each measuring 3.2 inches wide.”
Axial flux motors are short, but large diameter. Always be suspicious when you only get given one dimension of a new three dimensional thing.
When he’s only giving you the width, and not the length, be prepared for disappointment.
To be fair, 3.5″ is pretty girthy.
The man is built like a Tuna can!
From the relative point of a cylindrical axial, the width is the length, and the girth is the as yet undisclosed diameter.
Good lord it looks like one of the cyber bugs from Wreck it Ralph! It’s like MB saw the stuff that’s coming out of China, and instead of seeing what’s shit and what isn’t, took everything and cranked it all up to 11
I audibly said “what the fuck” when the topshot loaded on the home page.
Yeesh that thing is ugly.
In the thinnest of defenses, though, somehow it looking so terrible overshadows the disappointment of it being another bland “super car” EV. EV’s have some great applications and I’m all for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but god are they ever boring as high performance machines. I’m sure it would be a kick to launch, but even with that I can’t bring myself to care at all about another sedan that can do 0-60 in 2 seconds.
Handling. If a vehicle is inherently good at going fast you might as well offer it with proper handling chop. Yeah, losing the engine takes away from the experience but that experience itself has been getting watered down for years.
That’s definitely a possibility to make for an interesting EV sports car, but the current iterations all use a 2-3k lb battery pack to get a crazy range, and there’s only so much you can do at that point. Like I said, I’m sure this or a Taycan or Model S Plaid can be really fun to drive.
But as a “fun car” I would much rather have a slower car with all the theater and action of a wild V8 and a manual gearbox.
Most battery packs are just over 1,000lbs, and tesla has been keeping the Y and 3 at or below the 4k lb level for years now. Hence making them solid platforms for performance variants.
Does the technology of unobtanium halo cars still trickle down to cars we poors can buy?
Things like radar cruise, massaging seats and adaptive chassis were once confined to the realm of the S Class. Now you get them on Hyundai’s.
Sure if you define “poor” as someone who can only pony up six figures.
Remember when a Mercedes-Benz, was about the most tasteful and restrained car one could buy? I do, and I long for those days.
No thank you.
Dont forget well engineered and lasts forever. How many of those old diesels are still going, and the drivers seat still looks new?
Still going but still smogging too.
The big gash in the driver’s seat of my barely 12yo one sure says those days are gone. Sigh.
Alas… mb tex was too good
It really was miraculous stuff.
What they call MBTex today suuuuuucks. The bottom covers in my car were replaced under warranty for seam splitting, and now a portion of the driver’s seat bottom just *melted* one day. I have no idea how. It started as a small discolored spot that got bigger over a week or so, then the vinyl just dissolved (I really don’t think my farts are THAT bad). I now have an ugly 6″ patch of missing vinyl. And of course, I have a rare color AND the mothership lists these covers as NLA. I can get knockoff covers for cheap but they won’t be the right shade of tan/gray. Probably going to do it anyway as it won’t look as bad as it does now, and I plan to sell this car this summer.
The guy who came over to photograph my new listing yesterday showed up in a Margerine-colored W123 240D.
With a manual transmission.
On oversized Bundts.
Oh Lord, won’t you cry over this Mercedes Benz?
This makes me want to hurl more than cry, to be honest.
It was the best I could think of to rhyme with Joplin’s original
I was scrolling slowly and thinking, “wow, this is even worse than I foresaw their design trends going,” and then I got to the rear. Holy, ever loving fuck
*puts on Torch hat* What are German companies doing with rear lights lately? This looks like they just slapped on some tail lights from a Flying J truck stop, and I absolutely cannot stand newer BMWs with LED rear turn signals that slowly pulse on like an incandescent bulb, completely defeating the safety benefit of LEDs which illuminate much more quickly.
The new Mazdas do the complete opposite! The LED indicators light up immediately at full blast, then slowly fade out. Looks pretty cool IMO
I’m okay with that since they fully illuminate at first providing the safety benefit, but I still think it’s pretty funny that they’re going full circle by programming new technology to emulate old technology.
This is one of my favorite things about Mazdas and probably goes unnoticed by most of the unwashed masses. Pity, that.
First time seeing that on my 6e I was like “woahh”, people call it a rebadged Chinese car but Mazda really put a lot of their flair into it. Shame about the buttonless interior….
I do unabashedly love it in my CX-30, the fast on fade out even is on the indicator in the gauge cluster which is a nice touch. Supposedly represents a heartbeat, which might be corny but at least its distinct AND Amber colored.
It’s also present on the 6e and CX-6e, the “rebadged Changans”, sadly the gauge cluster screens don’t do the same effect for the little green arrows. I wonder if the new CX5’s like this too
I noticed the same thing with the cluster indicators on my Mazda3. I really hope they didn’t encheapen the new CX-5 by putting in standard dash arrows.
I hate that! It’s not a smooth fade-out, it’s all choppy and looks cheap.
The pulsing BMWs just make me think of a half broken incandescent indicator.
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to (a) notice and (b) have the exact same thought around LED safety and incandescents. This is why I come here
That interior is the Dan Flash shirt of interiors. A really expensive Dan Flash shirt.
Truly the car for nouveau riche tech bro dipshits.
LOL, I saw the top shot and immediately said, “New money, no class.”
Yes! I’ve never been able to explain the problem with “make it look high tech” but this is it. In trying to make it look cutting edge, they made it look cheap. Class is rarely defined by cutting edge and I wish brands could remember that.
Since this is an electric car, and electric cars are required to project a sound or a noise when driving at low speeds so as to alert pedestrians, if the sounds aren’t that of the Jetson’s space car, I’m going to be severely disappointed.
I’m kinda surprised its not an angry human voice growling for those pedestrians to immediately yield to their betters.
Maybe it will play random Devo samples.
Thomas always has good burns but this one is top notch. Well done.
https://copilot.microsoft.com/th/id/BCO.49c09e00-c705-4444-9e5f-9ec944717fcf.png
Not that far off from what Copilot did with the prompt “give me a picture of a car that looks like a catfish raised entirely on a diet of bong water.”
I don’t care how fast you go, you can’t outrun ugly.
Goes well with “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly runs clean to the bone. This is one boney fish.
Technically you can. Approach the speed of light and thanks to relativity you appear as infimitesimally squished by anyone unfortunate enough to observe you pass by. As a bonus you are ONLY observable as you pass by as you will be red and blue shifted well away from the observable spectrum at any observed angle otherwise.
Ain’t science grand?
4 doors does not equal Coupe. I’ll die on this hill!
The only way they could make this worse is if it was a 4 door crossover coupe, and the sad thing is that if this was a crossover coupe they’d probably sell them as fast as they could make them.
We so live in the worst timeline.
Well we ain’t dead yet so there’s that.
Maybe we are and this is all a Matrix-style simulation?
That would explain all the glitching I see.
Or maybe its just plain ‘ol deja vu.
2026 feels like a bad fever dream at this point.
Oh just wait till 2028…
Coupe does not equal two doors, anymore than sedans can only ever have four doors. You can die on that hill, but you are just wasting your life.
We can thank the American automotive industry for stopping differentiating between 2-door cars with formal and more sloped roofs after the 70s for this mindset.
True. 4 dour coupes were never common, but they have been a thing since the 1920s, just like 2dr sedans are a thing. Coupe, as in “to cut”, means the roofline, not the number of doors.
Yeah, they messed up our conception of landaulets and broughams too.
And people were complaining about the front of that Alpina concept…
Can’t wait for The Bishop to fix this one.
Mercedes has lost the plot
NOOO!!! She’s one of their top contributors here! 😛
She’s going to have to change her name to Changli!
I vote for Ssangyong instead.
At this point, Alpina would be an improvement.
I too enjoy articles from Changli Avenuer
Looks like an angry toad