Mercedes is building a new AMG GT 4-Door, but it won’t have a V8 – or a petrol engine at all

AMG is preparing to launch its first fully electric car, and it won’t be a half hearted effort. What you’re looking at here is an all-new AMG GT 4-Door saloon, and while it sadly won’t have a V8, it will be packing a bespoke performance car platform, low-drag bodywork and new-generation electric motors to take the fight to the Porsche Taycan. The covers will be pulled off in June, but for now, these spy shots offer an early look at the new model.

The petrol GT 4-Door is a force of nature – in GT63 S E Performance trim it packs a colossal 831bhp, weighs 2.3 tons and features a complex electric drive unit mounted at the rear axle. Though the new GT 4-Door will be lacking the sound and theatre of a V8, it’ll go even further as far as technology is concerned, being built on a new EV platform designed specifically for AMGs called AMG.EA. This will feature axial-flux motor tech to make the powertrain more compact and power dense, as well as a battery pack designed specifically for high performance applications. 

The GT 4-Door will be the first model to arrive on the new architecture, with a Lotus Eletre-rivalling AMG SUV to follow. The tech that will underpin them was previewed with Mercedes’ Vision AMG show car back in 2022 – a swept back four-door coupe that’s not a million miles from the 4-Door in its overall proportions, with smooth low-drag bodywork and a Kamm-tail rear end. 

The Vision AMG demonstrated how the AMG.EA platform could be employed for a low-slung four seater. Despite having a floor-mounted battery pack, which usually eats into headroom in a low car, the concept supposedly offered plenty of space for four passengers thanks to an ‘intelligently designed interior floor,’ and used axial-flux motors developed by UK firm YASA, a subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz that has developed drive units for Koenigsegg, Lamborghini, Ferrari and others. Expect the GT 4-Door to bring the concept’s engineering solutions to production. 

Some of its styling details will appear too. AMG will take a completely different approach to Mercedes’ mainstream EVs, the GT 4-Door getting trimmed down, sleeker bodywork than the awkwardly shaped EQS and EQE saloons. Three-pointed star headlights will feature at the front, with more star-shaped graphics within the tail lights. Expect a Panamericana ‘grille’ to span across the nose, potentially with CLA-style backlighting.

As for power, the GT 4-Door will need to pack quite a punch to take on higher-end versions of the Porsche Taycan, plus the Lotus Emeya R and Polestar 5. Around 900bhp is, scarily, the norm in the electric supersaloon class, with the likes of the Taycan Turbo GT even breaking over the 1000bhp barrier. We’ll know exactly what the GT 4-Door brings to the table when the covers come off in June.