Upcoming customers of the Mercedes-AMG Project One will have to part with at least $2.4 million to buy the car but shouldn’t count on the hypercar having bulletproof reliability.
According to AMG boss Tobias Moers, the Formula 1-derived 1.6-liter turbocharged six-cylinder engine will have a shell life of just 50,000 km (31,000 miles), reports Motoring.
“We have an understanding of about 50,000km. This is OK for us. I think that’s good enough. That’s the life of the engine. Then we do some rework, like in a race car. But you don’t need an F1 team, you don’t need special gas [fuel]. You can push the button and it fires up,” he said.
In some respects, modifying an engine lifted from a Formula One car to survive for 50,000 km without a rebuild is quite an impressive feat. On the other hand, a number of more mainstream and significantly cheaper engines can last over 1 million km.
Fortunately, we don’t expect the 50,000 km engine life to put off many potential Project One buyers. It is unlikely that any of the 275 customer examples will ever reach such a high mileage and even if they did, multi-millionaire owners probably wouldn’t be concerned with having to pay for an engine rebuild.
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