Mercedes-AMG’s GT Track Sport Concept, Its Extreme and Ultimate Track Day Sports Car, Is Coming Along Nicely

There is beauty and purity in a track-only car created by an automaker. Such creations are designed and engineered to serve one purpose exceedingly well without the need for parity against other cars. The Mercedes-AMG GT Track Series was easily among the best out there, but being based on the AMG GT Coupe, it also looks good while dropping solid lap times. AMG, however, wasn’t content with the performance of the standard GT Track and is poised to deliver an even more extreme version with the GT Track Sport concept car.

After refining the original GT Track Sport concept design in late July, AMG has finally begun the car's physical testing phase. The original GT Track Series was based on the C190 generation and made within the limits of a GT3 race car, minus the engine-power restrictions and weight limits mandated by racing series for official competition. The GT Track Sport builds on that idea by going to the C192-generation AMG GT with engineering aimed to further reduce the 3,086-pound weight of the original Track series. AMG says there is also an improvement to the weight balance, an AMG V-8 under the hood, and suspension changes to make this car's driving limits much higher than those of the C190 Track Series, which was an already impressive high-performance driving experience.

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Track Predator-Worthy Aero

AMG also worked to improve the car's aerodynamics, and much of that effort is easily seen despite the yellow, black, and white camouflage. The nose is far more closed off, there is a new intake scoop on the hood, the front fender vents are gone, and the rear wing is a swan-neck unit. It also appears there is no rear window, it instead being replaced by some sort of scoop. That’s not a huge issue for modern camera systems; even most race cars today rely on screens more than rearview mirrors.

Another interesting aerodynamic feature is the secondary deck-lid spoiler. This looks to direct air in a way to assist with the underside of the wing to make it more efficient beyond going with the swan-neck supports. The rear bumper also has outlets to allow for more trapped air to escape than the standard GT's GT3 body work, so this is a car that will slice through the air far more efficiently than the current GT Track star.

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What’s so Good About a Swan Neck and Secondary Spoiler?

For those who don’t understand why a swan neck is more effective than wing supports mounted under the wing, remember that a race car wing is effectively an upside-down airplane wing. The faster you can make air flow over one face (creating a low-pressure surface), the more lift you generate as you slow the air on the other (creating a high-pressure surface). In the case of a race car, you want to accelerate the air over the underside of wing to generate negative lift (aka: downforce). Add a secondary spoiler to help guide air under it and you get a much more effective wing for the speeds a race car—or track car, in this instance—experiences.

When Can We Get One?

As it has only just entered the testing phase, Mercedes-AMG hasn’t told us when to expect the GT Track Sport concept to be ready for its (unsurprising) limited run. We also don’t have an official cost for this C192 track-only model, but the C190 Track Series was $385,000, just a bit cheaper (we estimated it to be around 8 percent less) than AMG’s GT Coupe GT3 race car. Don't be surprised if the newest track-focused AMG coupe commands a price in the low- to mid-$400,000 range to roughly match the original GT Track Series versus GT3 car cost comparison.