The Mercedes-AMG GT R Is Now A ‘Bargain’

Now, it’s not often we’d look at a used car of any kind for £85,000 and think ‘Wow, what a bargain’ because frankly, that’s a lot of money to spend on anything. However, in the context of the Mercedes-AMG GT R – if you have the means – used examples are looking like quite the steal.

Introduced in 2017, a new GT R would’ve set you back around £140,000 which rose closer to £160,000 by the time it went off sale in 2021. That money got you a pretty overhauled version of the GT rather than just an exercise in remapping the 4.0-litre V8, too.

For a start, power was upped by a not-insignificant 75bhp to 577bhp courtesy of new turbochargers, wastegates for those and uprated exhaust ports. That was sent to the rear axle through a lighter prop shaft and onto a modified dual-clutch gearbox that featured a longer first gear, yet shorter seventh and final drives over the base car.

That’s not even factoring in the stuff you could see, like the more aggressive aero kit added for the sake of downforce, plus a wider body courtesy of carbon fibre wheel arches. Oh, and despite all that, it weighed 15kg lighter than the base car.

It was a pretty mega thing, and universally acclaimed. Yet it had one big problem coming from the direction of Stuttgart.

That was, of course, the Porsche 911 GT3. There was a track-focused German sports car with a proven pedigree, a loyal customer base which Mercedes would’ve had to convince to come over to them and also a price that generally undercut the AMG by about £10,000 with values pretty much guaranteed to hold for a few years.

As a result, the GT R never really quite captured the audience it was intended for and there are not many of them kicking around in the UK at least. For the second-hand buyer though, that seemingly means demand is low and the potential for a bargain is high.

We’ve taken to Autotrader for a nosy, as is often the case on a Friday afternoon, and found just 14 currently available. Ignore the handful of Roadsters, and all but one are priced comfortably under £100,000 – that outlier trading on the classic ‘one-of-a-kind’ spec to justify an overpriced listing.

It’s this £84,950 Green Hell Magno car that has caught our eyes though. It’s a 2017 example with 21,000 miles on the clock and comes specced with a desirable AMG Track Package – adding carbon brakes and a roll cage, which would’ve been about £20,000 to option when new.

There’s no mention of service history in the listing, but the immaculate MOT history for its personalised plate (HE11 MGO, in case you want to check yourself) suggests it’s been well-kept. Definitely worth asking the dealer about that.

It’s hard to imagine prices for the AMG GT R will stay this low forever, so if you’ve been toying with the idea, now could be the moment. It’s worth pointing out you’ll now pay more for an equivalent 991 Porsche 911 GT3, too...