When the $3 million Mercedes-AMG One debuted in 2017, I remember thinking: “It’ll be a long time before I ever see one of those in person.” The then-new AMG One had a 1,000-horsepower Formula One-derived power unit and a production cap of 275 worldwide, which meant to catch a glimpse of one would be a “right place, right time” situation.
Seven years later, in 2024, I saw my first one at Ten Tenths Motor Club in North Carolina. It was silver with Mercedes stars dotted all over the back, and it’s owned by Rick Hendrick, who also owns the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series team.
Now, just a few months later, I’ve seen two in the same place: Ten Tenths, again. Let’s walk through a few surface-level fun things I noticed about the cars.
1. More Than Just A Fake Front Badge
The lighter and more performance-focused a supercar gets, the more likely it is to have its badges replaced with stickers or paint — because that miniscule weight reduction is very important for you to set a good lap time, especially after you’ve consumed your weight in coffee and scones at the racetrack.
I usually see fake badges in the form of Porsche’s Weissach package, where the front Porsche emblem gets replaced with a flat, 2D version of itself. But the front badge on the Mercedes-AMG One tricked me from a distance, because it has its own shadow and its own sunlight flares. In the photo above, the two flares on the Mercedes badge are fake, while the one floating next to the badge is real. They’re pretty convincing.
The funniest part about the fake badge, though, is that I walked around the back of the One and saw something surprising at the base of the fin: another Mercedes badge. A real one. In a place most people won’t even notice it.
It was a reminder that weight-savings badges work, functionally, but they’re also for show. I often think they’re more useful for telling people you want to save weight than actually saving weight, because the savings are so minimal that you’d be better off skipping the coffee instead.
2. The Active Louvers Are A Fashion Statement
The AMG One debuted full of cooling and aerodynamic tricks, including: a full mouth of air inlets; hood outlets that push hot air around the sides of the driver compartment; an automatically extending front splitter; a large engine-air intake on the roof, like the ones in Formula One; a vertical shark fin for lateral stability in high-speed corners; and more.
But the feature that got tons of attention while the car was on display was a small one, in terms of surface area: the active-ventilation louvers above the front wheels. The louvers are a set of four small body panels on each side that lift up and down, depending on what mode the car is in. Opening the louvers increases downforce on the front axle, as well as increases negative pressure (a state in which pressure in one place is lower relative to its surroundings) in the wheel arches.
The active louvers were up while the AMG Ones were parked at Ten Tenths, and because it was so out of place to have an active cooling and aerodynamic piece sticking straight up while the car was on static display, it got everyone’s attention. The louvers looked like porcupine quills, spiking in defense while crowds of people gathered to take photos.
3. You Can Fake Everyone Out With the Hybrid Powertrain
Something I’ll never forget about seeing the AMG Ones on display at Ten Tenths was the end of the show, when the car owners (or their employees) went out to the grounds to drive the vehicles back to where they belonged. A Hendrick employee sat in the silver AMG One, and everyone — including my friends — squatted down with their phones to catch the startup.
Custom Hendrick plate on the Hendrick-owned AMG Project One. pic.twitter.com/LBhNtWSsJD
— Bozi Tatarevic (@BoziTatarevic) April 5, 2025
This is, after all, a hybrid Formula One power unit that Mercedes says will last 31,000 kilometers before needing to be replaced. It’s the real deal, and for most people, they’ll only get to see it start up once in their lives.
There we were, waiting. Excited. The Hendrick employee poked around, and the car started … in electric mode. And drove away.
Would I have loved to hear that F1-style engine? Yes. Was it way funnier that none of us did? Absolutely.
It’s a better story to tell, and I love telling stories.
Just how much money does Rick Hendricks have, anyway?
A Lot. Man owns a massive auto dealership group, has an insanely successful racing team and various other ventures. But he’s actually done a lot of cool stuff with it at least. That ten tenths track was built by him next to the Charlotte speedway. It’s like 5 minutes from where I work
These are ugly things but there’s no denying how goddamn cool they are. Very, very few hypercars interest me but this one does due to the crazy engineering and the F1 powertrain, but that should come as no surprise because I’ve always lusted after the CLK GTR due to how many video games it was in. Doug got to drive one recently and it was cool to see all the details up close.
With that out of the way the owner of each one of these that never sees a track (which I assume will be like 274/275) should be prosecuted at The Hague. This is a literal race car. Go drive it as god intended. I saw an Audi R8 the other day what was being driven super conservatively and it broke my heart. Cars are meant to be DRIVEN.
Yeah, at least hendrick actually did build a race course for his
The painted badge at the front and the real one on the rear may have more to do with aero than weight. Throwing a goober on the nose might upset the balance, while putting it in a less sensitive spot doesn’t.
$3,000,000 and the badge is paint and not platinum?
Those fake sunlight flairs are going to look stupid at night, or when it’s cloudy.
Is there at least a platinum one I can buy to lay over the fake one when it’s in my marble floored display garage? Maybe backed with panda skin so it doesn’t scratch the paint, unless there is something more rare and offensive than panda skin?
A bald eagle down comforter?
Infant human leather?
Did they graft a Corvette front end onto a 911?
Were I a billionaire with the required lack of conscience to spend that kind of money on a fragile toy with a short engine lifespan, I’d prefer something beautiful to something being so compromised for performance I (and none of the other owners) could ever use.
If I were a billionaire I’d be happy with a Ferrari 250 GTO.
So would I and, like Nick Mason, I’d drive it all the time.
Many of them, even most, get driven. It’s amazing really.
Yeah, they show up at a lot of uppity events and vintage racing and drives and props to everyone who does so. As common an opinion as it is, I happen to think they’re at the top of the most beautiful cars ever made list (though they vary a fair amount individually, with some are slightly more awkward in their curves than others) as well as being incredible drivers. They’re worth so much that nothing more than a charred VIN tag is still worth rebuilding an entire wrecked car around, so why not drive it?
We are in total agreement.
This seems to be the philosophy at Goodwood. It’s priceless, so there’s budget to rebuild it. Let’s race!
The painted/sticker badge is properly for aerodynamic reasons rather than weight.
An example of function before form!! So much function it’s ugly. There’s a limit to everything.
These cars are so impractical; why would anyone even buy one? How do you even get in or out to it? Such a waste of money.
— My Mother (probably)
I’m pretty sure my wife has said those exact words.
Replace the powerplant after 19K miles? woof, that’s worse than my Kia
That’s likely at least 19x the longevity of any other F1 powerplant.
But is that because all of the other F1 powerplants are being driven in F1 races?
would be wild to daily drive this to and from work every day though lol
I’ve heard they fly that year’s Iowa State Fair Airbrush License Plate & T-Shirt Champions over to paint the logos on the hood. They’re also allowed to tag the underside of the hood.