From Game to Reality: The Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision GT Concept

“This is the future of Mercedes-Benz design,” Gorden Wagener, vice president for design at Daimler, said as he introduced the car at the Los Angeles Auto Show, where press previews began on Wednesday, simultaneous with its unveiling at the Tokyo motor show. “This car, or elements of it, will make its way into production.”

He added that the AMG Vision GT embodied the company’s design philosophy.

“The design of this concept car reflects to extreme effect the perfect symbiosis between emotional, sensuous contours and intelligently presented high tech,” he said.

Mr. Wagener said the car’s futuristic shape was actually inspired by an old, storied Mercedes racecar: the 1952 300 SL, which won the Carrera Panamericana an endurance race in Mexico — that year.

“The grille is straight from that car, although this one lights up with variable-pattern LEDs,” he said.

Aside from the Vision’s come-hither styling, an enthusiast will probably be drawn in by its planned powerplant, An AMG-tuned twin-turbo V8 engine producing 585 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque. (The show car was actually powered only by an electric motor to move it around the convention center.)

With an aluminum body and components of carbon fiber, the Vision GT weighs in at just over 3,000 pounds, according to Mercedes. Mr. Wagener said that the power-to-weight ratio would be about 5.2 pounds per horsepower.

“An unrivaled figure in the super sports car segment, and one that guarantees exceptionally dynamic performance,” Mr. Wagener said of the car, which was developed jointly by teams at Mercedes’s advanced design studios in Sindelfingen, Germany; Carlsbad, Calif.; and Como, Italy.

The Vision GT is on display at the Los Angeles auto show next to a Gran Turismo 6 video game that showgoers can play to experience a computer-generated sensation of the concept car’s projected performance.