I Bought The Holy Grail AMG GT R “Track Unit” From Corporate Mercedes! They Say The Engine Is Bad! If you guys have any info on this car.
I Bought The Holy Grail AMG GT R “Track Unit” Corporate Mercedes Abandoned With A “Bad” Engine!
This Mercedes-AMG GT R has been owned and used only by the automaker itself, at least, until now, though it’s unclear what’s wrong with it.
There’s no denying the fact that the Mercedes AMG GT R is a super cool and special sports car, one that many of us would love to own. That’s easy to say given the fact that the stylish machine is powered by a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 making a cool 577 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque, along with goodies such as rear-wheel steering and active aero, to boot. As one might imagine, the Mercedes-AMG GT R isn’t cheap – touting an original MSRP of more than $150k – but they can be had for a discount on the used market, in some cases. That’s certainly the case with this very special Mercedes-AMG GT R that Alex Palmeri of the YouTube channel Legit Street Cars just purchased at auction, too.
This is no ordinary GT R, after all, but rather, one that was actually used by the automaker at its U.S.-based driving academy in California. As one might imagine, that means it doesn’t come with a warranty, and making matters worse, it has apparently suffered a blown engine. However, though the auction listed this car as having some damage, it looks pretty stellar in the pictures provided – making the $74k hammer price a bit more palatable.
There are some signs of cosmetic damage resulting from what is likely a car that’s been sitting outside in the sun for a long time, however – peeling clear coat on the carbon fiber mirrors and shriveled up leather chiefly among them. Trouble is, engines for these types of cars aren’t exactly cheap to procure, and of course, once Palmeri sees the Merc in person, he discovers all sorts of things wrong with it that weren’t disclosed in the listing – as is par for the course.
After giving his newly acquired Mercedes-AMG GT R a good scrub, Palmeri gets to work trying to figure out what, exactly is wrong with the engine. The turbos seem fine, so he starts pulling plugs, and finds that coolant has made its way into one of the cylinders. A borescope doesn’t reveal anything obviously wrong with the car, and a few phone calls later, Palmeri discovers that it may have in fact been used by a pro race car driver to take people for spins on the track.
Underneath, Palmeri attempts to spin the engine over manually, and to his surprise, it does precisely that. It’s still possible that there’s a bent rod inside, or perhaps a blown head gasket, but at this point, there are still a lot of unanswered questions revolving around this cool and unique project – and we’ll certainly be tuning in to see how it comes along.
