Story behind
Built Before AMG Grew Quiet and Civilized
Black Series began as an internal argument. AMG had spent years making Mercedes saloons faster than they had any right to be, but always within limits — comfort preserved, refinement intact, the badge discreet. In 2006 a group inside the company decided to find out what happened if nobody enforced those limits.
The SLK 55 Black Series was the answer: roof mechanism deleted, track widened, carbon added, 400 PS, and no attempt at politeness. It sold out. So they did it again with the CLK 63, then went genuinely unhinged with the SL 65 — a twin-turbo V12 making 670 PS in a car that had started life as a comfortable convertible. The C 63 Coupé followed, then the SLS with its gullwing doors and 631 PS naturally aspirated V8.
Then in 2020 came the AMG GT Black Series, with a flat-plane-crank V8, 730 PS, and a Nürburgring lap that took the production-car record. It was also, quietly, the end of something. AMG has moved to hybrids and four-cylinder power now, and the reasons are sound. But six times over fifteen years, the company built cars that made no economic sense at all — and those are the ones people still talk about.
