Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor Interview - Mercedes AMG Book with Matt Delorenzo, Author - November 8, 2025

This week, Ron talks with automotive journalist Matt DeLorenzo, author of Mercedes AMG, about how two German engineers turned a luxury car brand into a racing powerhouse. From the birth of AMG in a small town workshop to the legendary “Flying Pig” that stunned the racing world, Matt shares how Mercedes’ high-performance division grew into one of motorsport’s most dominant forces. Hear the story behind the initials A-M-G, why each engine is hand-built by a single craftsman, and how today’s AMG hypercars still carry that racing DNA. Whether you’re a Benz fan or just love great car stories, this deep dive into performance history is one you won’t want to miss.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
There's a lot of things I've talked to you about
over the years, and a lot of interviews, and we've
talked about a lot of cars, and we've talked about
a lot of books. And I recently came across Mercedes
AMG and I thought, you know, there's something we've never
talked about, you and I and we need to discuss
it and understand just what is it. You know, I

(00:32):
think of Mercedes Benz. A lot of people think of
Mercedes Benz, and it's it's well, tell you what, let
me let me bring our guests on and get started here.
Matt de Lorenzo, he's written a book, Mercedes AMG. It's
available now on Amazon, and we're happy to have him
with us here. Welcome to the Car Doctor, Matt.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thanks Ron, I'm really happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
So, you know, Mercedes AMG, where do you want to?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Where do we start? Right?

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Let's you know, I think of Mercedes. Okay, if I'm
the average consumer and I'm going, well, it's a status symbol.
I drive a Mercedes. It's a nice, fancy, luxurious car.
But there's a hot rod side to Mercedes Benz, right.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, and that's the AMG brand. And you know that
perception that you talked about people considering it just a
luxury car. That's what AMG led to the genesis of
AMG to begin with. Back in the late nineteen sixties,
there were two engineers, Hans Werner Offrecht and Erhard Melcher,

(01:29):
and they were young engineers. They worked within Mercedes. They
wanted to go racing. They developed some racing engines and
built a race car and campaigned it for a year
while they were still employed, and they were told either
you win or you're going to lose your job. They won,
they kept their job, but Mercedes stopped racing and at
the time people were thinking, well, there was nothing wrong

(01:52):
with you know, Mercedes the ultimate luxury car performances and
part of the thing. They went off and started their
own company, AMG, and they started building hot rod Mercedes
for racers and they were very successful. And so that
AMG is Offrecked Melcher and then the gas Grassodspotch, which

(02:15):
is the small German town where Offrech was from.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, so you know, is it that I would go
into it, not to make this about how to get one,
but is it that I would go into a Mercedes
dealer and I want to buy an AMG or they
already have them. Now, their relationship with Mercedes is so
that the dealers just stock these vehicles, so to speak.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Right right, Well, what happened was, at first Mercedes wanted
nothing to do with these so called garage tinkerers, and
they kept a fairly arm's length relationship with them up
and through the nineteen eighties, and then they introduced this
car called the Hammer that got everybody's attention. It was

(02:58):
putting a big vaight in a mid size Mercedes. And
then they started helping Mercedes with their German touring car
racing and they were very successful there, and then all
of a sudden, Mercedes goes, well, why don't we let
them sell our cars through our dealers, And that happened
in nineteen ninety and then about nine years later they

(03:22):
bought half the company, and then six years later, in
two thousand and five, they bought the rest of the
company and they turned it into the Mercedes AMG Division,
which is the performance division of Mercedes.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
The late don Imis, the radio host, was once interviewing
and I'm quoting from the introduction in the book by
Sam Posey, and the book is phenomenal. By the way,
I can't tell you enough the color pictures, in the
detail and the way you feel like you're at the
racetrack driving in some of these cars. Right, the late
Don Imis was talking to Bo Diedle, the the former

(04:00):
New York City detective, and they were talking about Mercedes
in which one to buy and Don Eimas said, buy
a Mercedes S sixty five AMG. And his reasoning was,
that's just the most expensive one. But right, that's that's
not necessarily the only reason. Right, Mercedes AMG is a
real performance car then as now.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Right, right, And I think that that's that's you know,
the perception of Mercedes being a luxury brand was around
and that you had to have the most expensive one.
They have the best one and Amgs since they were
you know, they have handbuilt engines. Their engines are built

(04:40):
by one technician and then they're exclusive to the AMG car.
So that's why they were sold at a premium to
other Mercedes. But as you say, there's a lot more
to it. I mean that the suspensions are different, the
engine tuning is different, they have different interiors in different styling,

(05:06):
and there are actually now bespoke a MG models like
the AMGGT, which is a sports car that actually competes
with the portion nine to eleven.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
And in your book when you when you wrote this, Matt.
For those of you just tuning in, we're talking to
Matt de Lorenzo. He's written a book Mercedes AMG, and
we're discussing it at length here on the Car Doctor.
You know, Matt, when you wrote the book, how do
I attack this question? Is Mercedes your car? I mean?

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Is this is this your passion? You know?

Speaker 1 (05:34):
What do you what do you normally write about? Did
you just wake up one day and say I'm gonna write.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
About you know, I've been I've been writing about cars
since the late seventies, actually so, and I've written other
a couple of other books.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
I did one hundred and one hundred year anniversary of Dodge.
I did a book on corvettes. I did a Mustang book.
So I've been writing again, sort of across the the industry.
I do like performance cars. And about a year and
a half ago I was talking to my publisher and
I said, you know, I'd like to do something different,

(06:10):
and he said, we want to do an AMG book.
They had done a book on BMWM, which is somewhat
analogous to AMG. You know, it's a performance motorsports division
of BMW, and the publisher found that nobody has really
done a comprehensive history of AMG. So I looked at

(06:31):
that as a great opportunity. And I knew I knew
quite a bit about AMG, especially since AMG had bought
or Mercedes had bought AMG. And I actually traveled to
Germany when I was at road in Track and saw
some of the early development on the SLS gull Wing,

(06:53):
which was the first pure AMG products, So I was
familiar with that. I wasn't familiar with the his street,
and when I went down the internet research rabbit hole,
I was absolutely fascinated by off Wreck and Melker and
what they were able to accomplish.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
You know, chapter six, the title from road back to Track,
the chapter seems to cover that we're taking everyday cars
and we're taking them to the racetrack.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Right, And you know, that's kind of a recurring theme
with AMG because in the beginning they made race cars
and the racers would come to them and said, well,
we want to we want to have you work on
our road cars, so they started doing road cars well.
During the seventies, with the energy crises and all that

(07:43):
other stuff, motorsports kind of went into a little bit
of decline and AMG concentrated more on road cars. They
were doing body kits and wheels and engine upgrades and
primarily for road cars for the public. The eighties, things
shifted back towards competition, and that's when they got involved

(08:07):
with the German Touring Car Series, which was wildly popular.
Over one hundred and fifty people million people around the
world would watch these races and AMG took the baby
Benz the one ninety Mercedes and won the championship. Was
very successful in there, and that caught a lot of
people's attention to that. You know, AMG is Mercedes are

(08:33):
very closely alive with Mercedes or vice versa. You know.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yes, what we're really saying here in a sense is
AMG is a factory hot rod. It's a factory race car.
You can go out and buy something exactly, drive it
to the track, race it around the track, and then drive.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
It home exactly. They have a lot of track specials
and they still compete heavily in sports car racing. So
the AMGGT has competed very well. It's one. It's class
at Lamart, it's one at Daytona twenty four. It really
the two are are interrelated, the performance aspect on the

(09:14):
road and still their ability to do really well in motorsports.
And incidentally, one of the guys who's helping Mercedes with
that is Hans Werner Offrecked And after he had sold
the company to Mercedes, he formed his own company called
HWA his initials Hans Werner offreck and he actually builds

(09:36):
a lot of the privateer GT racing cars for Mercedes.
And his shop is located right where AMG was kind
of grew up in a falter Bach, which is north
of Mercedes headquarters in Shuttegard.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, a grassroots effort and look what it became.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Hey Matt, Yeah, ladies, let's take a pause.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
I'll tell you what. Stay right where you are, let
me come back on. Want to talk about the Flying Pig.
Don't say anything else. I want to give it away
to the listeners and I want to get that out there.
And I'm running ani in the card Doctor. We're here
today with Matt de Lorenzo and we'll both be back
right after this. Don't go away? Do pigs really fly?

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Ron An Anie in the car Doctor. I'm here with
Matt de Lorenzo. He's the author of Mercedes AMG, a
brand new book. It's available out there on Amazon. It
comes to us from Quarto Publishing, and we're just sitting
here chatting about Mercedes and AMG and the performance side
of it in the book. And great book. I can't
say enough good things about it. Nice, big color pictures,
a lot of history on Mercedes. First chapter, Matt, this

(10:44):
pig can fly? What are we talking about? The flying
pigs in a cardbook? What are we talking about there?

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Yeah, we're talking about Hey, how AMG really got on
the map in the first place. Alfred and Melcher had
left the company and they were two race cars and
they were doing some road cars for people. Mercedes had
put a V eight engine in their S class. It
had originally been used only in the big six hundred limos,

(11:13):
and they wanted there was some engineers inside the company
wanted to take it racing, and they tried to take
it racing, and management kind of put the kebash on it.
They tried to run at spah in nineteen sixty nine
in a twenty four hour race. So AMG took up
the challenge and they bought a wrecked sel with the

(11:37):
six point two leader V eight in it, punched it
out to six point eight leaders, painted it red and
took it to Spawn nineteen seventy one. Well, you had
this big luxury car roaring around the track with a
V eight engine, open pipes, and people said that looks

(11:57):
like a big red pig. But the crowd loved it,
and actually they finished second overall of Ford Capri one.
But the Red Pig came in second overall and first
in class, and they actually they were raising a couple
of other VA cars. There was a Camaro that had

(12:18):
sat on the pole and a Mustang in the race,
and the Red Pig beat them both and almost won
the race overall. So it was a big sensation.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Suffice it to say, you pull up to a traffic
light and there's a Mercedes in front of you, and
it says a MG on the back. That's just not
fancy interior and bitter carpeting.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
No, it's a it's a faster car. And that was
the thing about those the big luxury cars. And again
the hammer that they did later. They were sort of
they were luxury cars, but they had these hot rod
engines in them that would shut down nine to elevens
and BMW's, so they really they really brought it when

(13:02):
it came to performance.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
The name of the book is Mercedes AMG matt Inside
one of the chapters, is it a MG one story?
In our in our final two minutes they talk about
you talk about they made an F one engine into
a into in Mercedes and it was a handbuilt prototype
car some kind of Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
They they did a hypercar for the streets and they
actually adapted the same Formula one engine that's used by
the racing team. Now the racing team has actually run
out of England and has minimal it's more of a
badging thing between a MG F one and AMG road cars.
But they did develop this car together and they made

(13:41):
a street car that uses current F one technology. Very
difficult to do because it's a hybrid. You know, it
has a battery that that kinetic energy recovery system, the
curve system, and it's like a it's a two million
dollar car. It's really a mazing. But you talk to
the engineers and they're like, yeah, we'll never be able

(14:03):
to do this again. Yeah, because of the emissions they had,
you know, noise regulations, emissions, even just starting the car.
It takes ten guys to start an F one car.
This car you go in and you push a button,
it starts, and I took a lot of engineering.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Took a lot of technology, I'm sure. So yeah, Hey
Matt Our and your closing thoughts. Where can the listeners
go get this twenty seconds or less? What should they
look for in the book? What are they going to
get out of it?

Speaker 2 (14:30):
I think they're going to get a great background history
and where AMG came from and kind of where it's
headed with their next round of products. And you can
find it on Amazon.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Cool beans, Matt de Lorenzo. We appreciate you taking the
time and spending it with us here on the Car Doctor.
We'll have you on again real soon and you be
well all.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Right, Thanks so much, Ron, it was great being here.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
You're very welcome. I'm running eny in the Car Doctor.
We're back right after this