The Mercedes-AMG GT road car debuted at the Paris Motor Show in October 2014 as the second sports car developed entirely in-house by Mercedes-AMG. Built on a shortened and upgraded version of the Transaxle Spaceframe platform used by the SLS AMG, the GT family uses an aluminium-dominant structure and a front mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout powered by a 4.0-litre M178 twin-turbocharged V8. The GT4 racing variant was derived from the GT R, the most performance-focused road-legal member of the first-generation range, which was itself introduced at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June 2016.
The GT R features a 430 kW output, manually adjustable coilover springs, active underbody fairing, a 9-mode traction control system, and a manually adjustable rear wing — characteristics that informed the GT4's motorsport brief. The GT R also employs a wider body and active rear steering compared to lower GT variants. The GT4's distinctive "Panamericana" grille with vertical slats, shared with the GT3 and GT R road car, became a visual identifier of the performance-oriented members of the GT range and was later adopted as standard across the entire GT lineup during the 2017 facelift.
The GT4 was launched in 2017 and made its competitive debut at the ROWE 6 Stunden ADAC Ruhr-Pokal-Rennen, the fifth round of the VLN season at the Nürburgring. The car was conceived for global customer racing programmes in GT4-class championships and endurance events.
The GT3 racing variant, a separate model from the GT4, preceded the GT4 with its own introduction in 2015 and went on to compete in the Blancpain Endurance Series, the ADAC GT Masters, and Super GT, among other championships. Both racing variants share their visual DNA with the GT R road car.
The broader Mercedes-AMG GT road range to which these racing derivatives belong was updated with a facelift in 2017. The facelift brought increased power for the standard GT and GT S variants, the addition of the GT C roadster, and the introduction of the Edition 50 model as a limited derivative of the GT C. In 2021, the GT Black Series debuted as the range's ultimate road-going variant, featuring a flat-plane crankshaft M178 LS2 engine producing 537 kW and setting a Nürburgring Nordschleife lap record of 6:43.616 for road-legal production cars. The Black Series replaced the GT R as the Formula 1 safety car from 2022.
The Formula 1 connection runs through the broader GT family. The GT S served as the official Formula 1 safety car for the 2015, 2016, and 2017 seasons, debuting at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix. The GT R assumed the safety car role from 2018 to 2021, wearing a special red livery for the 2021 season at Lewis Hamilton's suggestion. The GT R's Nürburgring time of 7:10.92, recorded in a test by Sport Auto magazine, made it the fastest rear-wheel-drive road-legal production car around the circuit at the time.
In January 2025, Mercedes-AMG confirmed development of a second-generation GT3 racing car based on the newer C192 platform, with track testing scheduled for that year. This new generation of racing cars is the first to be developed by Affalterbach Racing GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mercedes-AMG established to oversee customer motorsport operations. The development trajectory of the GT4 category within this successor programme follows the broader C192-based motorsport roadmap.
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