Overseas model of Mercedes Benz AMG GT Roadster shown.

Forget being practical.  Forget doing Mum’s Taxi duty or ferrying all the goods about as a tradie.  With the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster, it’s all about you and it’s all about having fun behind the wheel.  Playful and active as a kitten, this 2-door roadster sports car is there to be driven and to provide you with the sheer feeling of freedom that comes with open-top motoring.  Even if your head says you’re in the market for something larger, your heart knows that it wants this fun little roadster… and there are some times when you need to let your heart win.

Now, the most crucial part of a topless sports car, apart from the engine, I guess, is the soft top itself. On the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster, the soft top goes up and down in a mere 11 s and can do it at speeds of up to 50 km/h – perfect if you have to dodge a few showers of rain or if you spot something smelly ahead that you really don’t want to get a lungful of.  However, if it’s a chilly day and you want to enjoy the crisp, fresh smells of wintertime, early spring or late autumn, you don’t need to put the top up, thanks to the discreet draft stop mounted between the roll bars, and the AIRSCARF (on GT C models only), which sends gentle currents of warm air from the headrest around your neck so you don’t feel the chill – it’s a lot safer than a real scarf if you’re driving in an open-top car, as the dancer Isadora Duncan learned the hard way. (For those of you who don’t know the story, Ms Duncan was killed when her very long silk scarf wrapped around the axle of the sports car driven by her young racing driver lover – gruesome but rather a glamorous way to go.  So maybe take your scarf off when you’re driving or riding in the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster just in case.)  Returning to more pleasant but still glamorous topics, the soft top itself comes in three possible colours: classic black, beige or berry red (black is the standard).  The seats themselves in the GT C come with either heating or cooling, so you can stay comfortable no matter what the temperature, even when you’re driving this roadster the way it’s meant to be driven, open to the free skies.  And the “ordinary” GT, if one can use this word of such a nice car, has a dual-zone climate control system, which is plenty for a two-seater.

Although the AIRSCARF and the draught stops are either invisible or very discreet, the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster is neither of these.  It’s as glamorous as any of the creations by the top fashion designers and probably a lot more comfortable.  When the top is up, this roadster has the classic lines of a coupé – and we love the curved glass of the exterior mirrors.  The Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster also shows the signs of its racing heritage with the imposing front end with the deep air intakes and the barred grille proudly bearing the Mercedes badge.  The rear end is wide for better balance (this roadster’s a rear wheel drive) as well as for excellent looks, and displays the LED tail lights and the rear exhaust perfectly (on the GT C, you get the AMG performance exhaust system).  The whole body sits pretty on 19-inch wheels (GT) or 20-inch wheels (GT C), and the total package is a distinctive-looking head-turner.  You’ve got a good selection of paint colours as well: blacks, reds, greys and whites as well as an eye-popping but tasteful yellow and a classy cobalt blue.

And now for the engine, the other crucial feature of any car that’s there for driving pleasure. Inside the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster, you’ll find one of two engines, depending on whether you go for the baseline (that’s an understatement) GT or the top-notch GT C.  In both of them, you’ll find a 4-L engine laid out in a stylized V8 configuration with direct injection and Mercedes-Benz’s Biturbo aspiration, all coupled up to the rear wheels via AMG’s Speedshift DCT 7-speed transmission.  However, in the GT, your maximum power output is 350 kW and the greatest torque is 630 Nm (before you ask, yes, this is a petrol engine not a diesel; it runs on full-fat 98 octane).  Step up to the GT C and the engine has been tuned to wring out 410 kW of power and 680 Nm, which is enough to make some big bush-bashing load-towers jealous of the torque. AMG double wishbone sports suspension (GT) or AMG Ride Control Sports suspension ensure that the handling is agile and responsive.

Over recent years, Mercedes seems to have prided itself on having as many driver aids as possible available, and the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster is no exception.  Their thinking must be that if you’ve invested in one of their lovely machines, you probably don’t want to damage it in those moments of carelessness or distraction that happen to every single human being out there.  In this little roadster, you won’t just find things like parking assistance, cruise control, hill start control, a reversing camera and the full stability package (EBD, brake assist, ASR,) – and it’s got all that.  You’ll also find Mercedes’ innovative Attention Assist drowsiness detector (as if the cool air of top-down driving wasn’t enough to keep you alert), blind spot assistance, lane keeping assistance, and the Pre-Safe accident anticipation system.  That’s Mercedes’ Intelligent Drive for you.

In an open-top roadster, one of the pleasures of driving in the countryside is the ability to hear the sounds of what’s around you. In the city, it’s another story.  No matter whether you want to augment or drown out the ambient sounds, or whether you’ve got the top up or the top down, you’ll enjoy the sound system in the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster.  The system in question is a 10-speaker Burmester surround sound system with the works, with “the works” comprising voice control, Bluetooth audio streaming and every type of input except vinyl records and cassette tapes.  The 21-cm colour display screen sits nicely alongside the 3-spoke multifunction steering wheel, making navigation a breeze.  There’s an integrated wireless LAN hotspot built in to keep any techie passengers happy, and the connectivity allows you to read and write emails and texts hands-free, and to watch DVDS. However, given the fun you are likely to have driving the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster, all these might seem a bit superfluous. Come on, do you really have to check your emails when you’re cruising through some spectacular scenery with the top down?  You don’t really want to see the airbags (eight of them: front, knee, window and head/thorax for driver and passenger) in action…

As well as adding in the AIRSCARF, the heated/cooled seats and the peppier engine, the GT C also adds in Nappa leather upholstery and improved Distance Pilot autonomous cruise control.

A former Miss Universe once wrote that instead of spending tons of money on expensive face creams, a woman should put the money into a high-interest bank account, then use it to buy herself a glamorous convertible when she’s over 50.  The Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster could well be a candidate for what you’d pick in this situation (or, of course, if you’re a guy who loves to have fun while driving).

Current model series include:

• Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster
• Mercedes-Benz AMG GT C Roadster

For any more information on the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT Roadster, or for that matter any other new car, contact one of our friendly consultants on 1300 303 181. If you’d like some fleet discount pricing (yes even for private buyers!), we can submit vehicle quotes requests out to our national network of Mercedes Benz dealers and come back with pricing within 24 hours. Private Fleet – car buying made easy!