The Mercedes-AMG GT R stumbles on the street but sings on track

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  The Mercedes-AMG GT R is street legal, but it’s not at its best on public roads. [credit: Jim Resnick ]

As a beginner or even intermediate musician, you do not hop up on stage with jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie (were he still alive). If you’re not confident in your ability to keep up with all the chord changes, where you are in the song’s form, or the sheer tempo blowing by like a runaway train, it becomes a disaster. But overcoming intimidation and stretching one’s self is part of musical growth. The Mercedes-AMG GT R is the automotive Dizzy Gillespie and taking the wheel is the equivalent of sitting in with him. The timid will run away. But then they’d never know how easy it could actually be to sit in with the jazz master.

With aggressive spoilers, a gaping and hungry toothed grille, huge tires and a pounding V8 engine, the AMG GT R glowers as you approach it, much like an imposing Gillespie might at an open jam session… until the music starts. If the GT R could bark or snarl, it would do that, too. Turns out, though, that the big attitude is largely show.

The AMG GT R does not start life as a normal GT or GT S model with additional boost shoveled on top. And you would be a certifiable lunatic to approach anything even half-way near its limits on public roads.