AMG Won't Build a Standalone SUV Because It'll be Too Desirable and Would Hurt AMG Derivatives of the Mercedes GLA, GLC, GLE, and GLS

TopSpeed

By Kirby Garlitos

Published Mar 21, 2018

At least AMG is clear on that position

Given its hardcore performance pedigree, you would think that Mercedes-AMG would be one of the most likely performance brands to have a bone-crunching SUV of its own. But that’s not the case, and it will not be the case anytime soon. AMG chief, Tobias Moers, is sure of that because an AMG SUV would effectively cannibalize existing Mercedes-Benz SUVs that have their own AMG derivatives.

This doesn’t come as a surprise, even if some of us still think that it does. An AMG SUV sounds good on paper. Actually, it sounds great on paper. Imagine what it would be capable of…

Ok, now snap back out of it because as interesting as an AMG SUV sounds, it’s not something that would fit into the automaker’s overall business. This isn’t an AMG issue. It’s not even a Mercedes issue. It’s a Daimler issue. Building an AMG SUV could have the potential to cut into sales of Mercedes’ fleet of AMG-derived SUVs. That’s a list that includes the GLA, GLC, GLE, and GLS. It wouldn’t be worth it to develop an AMG SUV if it means that Mercedes’ SUVs will suffer because of it.

“We have to consider we have an overall business responsibility in Mercedes and AMG in common, and if you would do some dedicated AMG kind of car, there would be a big piece of cake we would be wanting that would be substituted,” Moers said. “So from an overall business approach, there is no sense to it.”

Now, some of you might be wondering why that’s the case for SUVs when it wasn’t for the AMG GT 4, a model that can be argued as an overlap to some of Mercedes’ existing AMG-derived sports and luxury cars. On that note, Moers explained that there are spaces the GT 4 could fit in that wouldn’t necessarily infringe on the segments currently occupied by Mercedes models. “That car was kind of a white spot in our portfolio,” Moers told CarAdvice. “What we saw there was a missing link, we lost customers. They drove C or E 63s and were looking for the next level, and we didn’t have it.”

You know who has one of those models? Porsche. That’s why the customers Mercedes lost went to Porsche because it has the Panamera. The AMG GT 4 filled that “white spot” that Moers was referring to. But, as far as SUVs go, AMG doesn’t have that same white spot to fill because it already has a fleet of AMG-powered Mercedes SUVs that can fill that space together.

“I know a car like this makes an appetite for more, but we are so fully loaded and still expanding… there’s nothing on the table,” he said.