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Brabus tunes Mercedes-AMG GT up to 600 horsepower

"You can never have enough power," says Brabus in the statement below, "especially in a sports car." Hence the beast you see here. It's based, as you can plainly see, on the Mercedes-AMG GT. But instead of 469 horsepower in the base model or 503 in S spec, Brabus has boosted it up to 600 metric horsepower. That works out to 591 hp by our standards, a figure backed up by an equally impressive 553 pound-feet of torque – up from 443 or 479. With all that power and twist, the Benz tuner of record says its take on the GT will top out at an autobahn-crunching 201 miles per hour, reaching 62 along the way in 3.6 seconds. Of course, Brabus didn't just tinker with the engine and leave the rest alone. It'll build customer vehicles to individual requirements, but has outfitted this demo vehicle with a full aero kit (in clear carbon fiber), monoblock alloys (20 inches up front, 21 at the back), a retuned suspension dropped by 0.6 inches, and a fully refitted interior. We'll be keeping an eye out for the Brabus GT at the Frankfurt Motor Show this week, but judging from the photos above, it would be hard to miss. Related Video: World premiere at the IAA 2015 BRABUS refines the Mercedes-AMG GT S 441 kW / 600 HP, 750 Nm of torque, a top speed of 325 km/h, carbon components and 21-inch high-tech forged wheels Lending an exclusive car an even more thrilling appearance has been the domain of BRABUS (Brabus-Allee, D-46240 Bottrop, phone + 49 (0) 2041 / 777-0, fax + 49 / (0) 2041 / 777 111, Internet www.brabus.com) for almost four decades. At the IAA 2015 in Frankfurt am Main, the exclusive sports program for the Mercedes-AMG GT and GT S models celebrates its world premiere. With an output increase to 441 kW / 600 HP (591 bhp) and a peak torque of 750 Nm (553 lb-ft), the two-seat car reaches a top speed of 325 km/h (201 mph). From the outside, the sports car with BRABUS design impresses with aerodynamic-enhancement components made from clear-coated carbon, ultra-light BRABUS Monoblock F forged wheels, a sports suspension with a multitude of selectable settings for damping and ride height, and a sports exhaust system made from especially lightweight titanium with electronically controlled sound management. BRABUS fine leather interiors and inlays made from real carbon and precious wood upgrade the cockpit of the two-door car. You can never have enough power, especially in a sports car.

Editors' Choice: Top Five 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show Debuts

Consider the 2015-16 auto show season officially kicked off. The Frankfurt Motor Show offered a great look at the newest crop of production cars and conceptual machines, and brought some old favorites back into the spotlight for a closer look. (The Alfa Romeo Giulia, for example, debuted in June, but this was the first time most of us saw it.) Now that the dust has settled and we're all on flights back to the US, our editors cast their votes for their personal favorites from the Frankfurt show. These are the cars we truly loved seeing the most. But unlike other shows, there was no one runaway winner – all of the Top Five received positive praise from our team. We won't spoil the results, though. Scroll down to see what we liked most from this year's Frankfurt expo. 5th Place – MERCEDES-BENZ IAA CONCEPT View 12 Photos MIKE AUSTIN: The clean lines on this concept have me excited for a more elegant beauty to future Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Next to the Concept IAA, the lovely S-Class Coupe looks like an overstyled barge. DAVID GLUCKMAN: Yeah, the extendable rear is neat and all, but I'm more interested in the front-end styling of this one. It looks like the Tron version of a 300SL, in a good way. I'm hopeful it portends the future of Mercedes design. STEVEN EWING: I was super impressed when Mercedes said that, with the rear end extended, this concept has a drag coefficient of just 0.19. That's crazy aerodynamic. I'm not head-over-heels about the styling, but I think the lessons learned from this concept are really important, and will play a huge role in the future of Mercedes' products. 4th Place – ALFA ROMEO GIULIA View 15 Photos SEYTH MIERSMA: I can hardly express how in love with this car I am. The styling feels creative, modern, and evocative, without going over the top. The proposed performance is spectacular. And the Alfa badge speaks to a legacy of romantic motoring. DAVID GLUCKMAN: Pretty Italian car makes big promises and will probably deliver on about three quarters of them. I think that will still be enough for me. JEREMY KORZENIEWSKI: I'm really intrigued by the Giulia. It looks great, sounds awesome, and I'm expecting it to have a load more character than its German rivals. I hope I'm not disappointed. 3rd Place – JAGUAR F-PACE View 15 Photos GREG MIGLIORE: It's the first SUV for Jaguar, and I think they nailed the design, capability, and electronics. It's the right car at the right time.

Ecclestone wonders if F1's upcoming turbo V6s should get augmented sound [w/videos]

While every team on the Formula One grid is worried about making a good showing in this year's championship at the same time as they develop a brand-new car for next year's championship, Bernie Ecclestone and F1 circuit promoters have a different concern: how next year's cars will sound. The current cars use 2.4-liter, naturally-aspirated V8s that can reach 18,000 revolutions per minute and employ dual exhaust, next year's engine formula calls for 1.4-liter turbocharged V6s that are capped at 15,000 rpm and are constrained to a single exhaust outlet. Ecclestone and promoters like Ron Walker believe the new engines sound like lawnmowers and that the less thrilling audio will keep people from coming to races. If Walker's Australian Grand Prix really is shelling out almost $57 million to hold the race, every ticket counts. As a fix, according to a report in Autoweek, Ecclestone "suggests that the only way to guarantee [a good sound] may be to artificially adjust the tone of the V6s."
However, neither the manufacturers nor the governing body of F1, the FIA, think there will be a problem. Ecclestone fears that if the manufacturers "don't get it right" they'll simply leave the sport, but the only three carmakers and engine builders left next year, Renault (its 2014 "power unit" is pictured), Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari are so embedded that it would stretch belief to think they'd leave the table over an audio hiccup - if said hiccup even occurs. And frankly, these issues always precede changes to engine formulas, as they did when the formula switched from V10 to V8; fans, though, are probably less focused on the engines and more on the mandated standardization of the sport and the spec-series overtones that have come with it.
No one knows yet what next year's engines will sound like, but we've assembled a few videos below to help us all start guessing. The first is an engine check on an Eighties-era John Player Special Renault with a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, after that is Ayrton Senna qualifying in 1986 in the Lotus 98T that also had a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, then you'll find a short with a manufactured range of potential V6 engine notes, and then the sound of turbocharged V6 Indycars testing last year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Any, or none of them, could be Formula One's future.