There is something sad, desperate – and telling – about EVs that play the soundtracks of the engine they haven’t got. It is something like a eunuch wearing a strap on – on his way to the fertility clinic. It is also something ridiculous when people pay around $140,000 to start to hear what isn’t there.

That $140k to start being the reported base price of the 2027 Mercedes AMG GT 4-Door Coupe – which is of course a sedan. Coupes having four doors being something like men who insist they are “women.” What Mercedes is trying to market, of course, is a sedan that looks (sort of) like a coupe, since coupes are considered sexier-looking than sedans.

The AMG GT 4-Door Coupe is also fake and gay in another way. Being an EV, it does not have a transmission because there is no ned to leverage the torque of an engine that isn’t there through gears. EV motors directly drive the wheels, which is something you’d think would be touted as superior since this eliminates the “middleman” as well as major parts, the transmission and the final drive axle. It is certainly more efficient to drive the wheels directly as there are no losses in transmission, so to speak.

So why then conjure flake and gay “shifting” that isn’t actually happening? Probably for the same reason that fake and gay V8 engine sounds are conjured.

Mercedes markets the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe’s fake and gay “shifting” simulator  as”AMGFORCE Sport+ mode” and says it replicates “authentic-feeling gear changes.”

Kind of like the way a strap-on maybe feels authentic to the recipient.

“Not only does this drive mode activate the sounds, it also activates the car’s simulated gear changes, ultimately in an effort to do its best impression of an internal-combustion AMG. When I first heard the sounds that the AMG GT 4-Door makes, I was shocked by their volume and impressively realistic V8 character,” says a “nonbinary” writer for Jalopnik, who refers to itself in the plural.

“Hearing it ‘idle’ and ‘rev’ was pretty cool,” they say.

No, it’s not “cool.” Not unless you think fake is cool. Not just fake, either – but gay. Not in the sexual preference sense so much as the preposterous sense. Own the truth, Mercedes. You are trying to sell an EV by pretending it isn’t one. If EVs are so appealing, why resort to an appeal to the very thing EVs are designed specifically to replace? Is it possible to conceive of a more devastating admission that the replacement is missing not just something but effectively everything?

The problem is basically this – as regards EV hypercars such as the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe : No matter how powerful it is made, it is still just another battery powered device. It is not possible to impart character into a battery. Engines are all engines, too – but there is an almost limitless variety of them and it is easy to impart character into them. Is it even necessary cite examples? Well, the air-cooled Porsche flat six comes to mind. The Honda VTEC four in the S2000 (with its near 10,000 RPM redline). A Mazda RX8 rotary. The manly rumble of a Hemi V8; the hair-raising sound of a supercharged Hemi V8. And – of course – the sound of Mercedes’ own magnificent V8s, including the soundtrack of the AMG GT R that is played by the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe.

It is not just the engines, either. I’ve got an an old muscle car with a Borg Warner Super T10 four speed manual; it has straight cut gears and the gear whine you hear as you accelerate through the gears is (pre Rush) mechanical music that is rapturous to the ears of people who appreciate cars with character.

Which brings us back to the problem. 

The AMG GT 4-Door Coupe touts 1,153 horsepower – which will no doubt give it the ability to get to 60 in less than 3 seconds. But it will accelerate without anything more than just acceleration. That is why the fake and gay engine noise and “shifting” comes along for the ride – because if it weren’t for the fake and gay stuff, this device would be like every other device. More powerful – and quicker – than most, to be sure. But that’s the extent of the difference. Inevitably, some other device will have a more powerful battery and motors and get to 60 as or more quickly, at which point what have you got?

Just another device.

Kind of like having an older iPhone that you could show off when you first bought it. Three years later, it’s just another phone.

Now, contrast that – the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe, that is – with a 300SL Gullwing from 60 years ago. Note that the ongoing appeal of this car is not just its gorgeous looks but its gorgeous engine, Mercedes’ brilliant in-line six. That engine is as critical to the appeal of the car as a beating heart is to the life of a human being. Take it away and you have silence, a working synonym for nothingness.

They do not understand this. Perhaps because they are compensated not to understand it.

“Mercedes flew me to Germany,” it admits. Meaning an all-expenses paid junket. I know about them because I used to get invited, too. Not anymore.

Probably because I’m not fake and gay.

Or a they.

Neither is my Trans-Am!

. . .

If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos. 

 

The post The Fakest And Gayest Mercedes Ever appeared first on EPautos - Libertarian Car Talk.