I love touchscreens in cars. Well, I love good touchscreens in cars. A lot of systems out there are pretty bad while some are just meh, but some of my favorite automotive user experiences are from cars that rely almost exclusively on touchscreens, like a Rivian R1S or BMW iX. But it’s true that many new cars, including even high-end ones and especially EVs, have lost a lot of the tactility that people loved in old cars. The public yearns for buttons and knobs and switches and other physical controls, along with all sorts of other design elements you want to see and feel and use.
Even screen-obsessed Mercedes has heard that call, and it has responded with the driver-focused interior of the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe, a fully electric replacement for the aging current GT 4-Door that was previewed last year by the GT XX concept. Yes, there are a trio of huge screens inside, but more importantly, look at the knobs on the center console. I’ve seen and felt a lot of great knobs in my day, but these ones are really drool-worthy.
We love a knob, don’t we folks?
There is a lot going on inside the second-gen AMG GT 4-Door — it’s like a scene from a 2000s hip-hop video, as my colleague Erin described it — so I’m gonna focus in on those knobs first. On the center console to the left of the cupholders are three different control dials that each have a dedicated purpose. At the top we’ve got the Response Control, which adjusts the responsiveness of the motors to accelerator inputs. In the middle is Agility Control, which Mercedes says “changes the agility around the vertical axis and thus the cornering behavior.” Finally there’s the self-explanatory Traction Control knob, which has nine different stages.
They have fun graphics on their faces, with red lights that come on as you crank up the intensity, but the design of the outer rim is what really rules. The shape is a bit similar to the AMG logo, also looking a bit like a tire tread. I love how the ambient lighting comes through, and it’ll be nice to have some actual texture to grip onto when twisting them.
On either side of the steering wheel’s bottom spoke are AMG’s familiar Drive Unit buttons, which have both a ring you twist and a screen face you press like a button to choose from the various drive modes (on the right) and control all sorts of things from suspension stiffness to sounds to active aerodynamics (on the left). You can also fine-tune the settings within the center screen, and set preferences for a custom drive mode. The left paddle behind the steering wheel changes the regenerative braking level, but pull the one on the right and you’ll activate a boost mode.
More than just knobs to touch
Okay, enough talk about knobs. In a departure from other new Mercedes, the GT’s 14-inch center touchscreen is canted toward the driver, with the angled surround also housing the 10.2-inch digital gauge cluster. A 14-inch display on the right side of the dashboard is optional, pointed straight at the front passenger. The screens are running the new MB.OS operating system first seen in the third-gen CLA, and there are new gauge designs and other AMG-specific design themes, as well as lots of telemetry and info pages. Instead of doing it a boring way, I like that the center screen’s backing and surround have an accordion-like design where it pokes out toward the driver, adding a bit of visual flair.
Mercedes-AMG
Integrated to the glass display surrounds on either side of the dash is a large galvanized round air vent with a similar design to the three control knobs (I guess we are still talking about knobs, sorry). I really like the wraparound “winglet” that forms the shape of the lower center air vents, which sit just above a pair of wireless chargers. Mercedes says the illuminated cup holders “are cleverly separated from the charging pads,” but the setup looks very normal to me.
Mercedes-AMG
Mercedes has been getting pretty wacky with its door panel designs lately, and the GT 4-Door is no different. The upper section has wave-like diamond-ish quilting and a design (and ambient lighting strip) that wrap all the way around the top of the dash. The floating armrests look very cool, accentuated by the straked stainless-steel speaker grilles of the Burmester sound system, and there is an actual window switch for each window. And like on the CLA, Mercedes finally redesigned the seat controls to be both more beautiful and more functional.
Now that is a sunroof
Speaking of seats, the GT 4-Door will have a sports car–like low seating position aided by a newly developed front seat design, but you’ll be able to get more intense lightweight performance seats that have integrated headrests and galvanized pass-through inserts. As with the current GT 4-Door, the car will come standard with two individual seats in the back but have the option for a three-across bench; either way, the backrests can be individually folded down. Though it doesn’t look super spacious back there (as is the case with the outgoing model and all other four-door coupes), Mercedes promises the back seat has “a comfortable upright seating position and ample headroom.” There’s a recess in the floor on each side for more legroom and “a naturally comfortable knee angle,” both big problems on the old car.
Mercedes-AMG
A regular panoramic sunroof is standard, with the option to make it electrochromic, but you’ll really want to select the Sky Control option box. That splits the roof into two different vertically oriented panels, the opacity of which can be individually controlled, and ambient lighting is used to not only create racing stripes that match the rest of the interior lighting, but also project giant AMG crests overhead. The roof uses heat-insulating laminated safety glass with an infrared-reflective coating and an ultra-thin low-emissivity (LowE) coating on the inside that reduces interior temperatures when it’s hot outside and reduces heat loss when it’s cold.
Speaking of glass, the GT XX concept car had no rear window, and two of the production car’s biggest competitors — the Polestar 5 and Jaguar Type 00 — won’t have rear windows either, but the GT 4-Door has a normal (and large-looking) rear window in its liftback tailgate. And of course, Mercedes will offer a ton of customization options through its Manufaktur Exclusive program, from all sorts of special leather colors to different trim material choices.
What else do we know?
Mercedes isn’t ready to confirm any other details about the GT 4-Door EV yet, but there’s a lot of things we already know, some things we can guess based on the concept, plus one important bit of info visible in plain sight in these images. I’ll start with that — in the gauge cluster, the car shows it has 81% charge and an indicated range of 509 km, or about 316 miles. That means the GT should have over 600 km of range on the European WLTP cycle, which should work out to well over 300 miles of range when the EPA gets its hands on one.
The GT 4-Door will be the first production model on the dedicated AMG.EA architecture, and thanks to the GT XX we have a very good idea of the performance we can expect — not only did Mercedes build multiple drivable GT XX concepts using the production car’s powertrain and platform, but it used them to break 25 records at Nardo. It’ll have three axial-flux motors that could put out more than 1,300 horsepower, giving it the possibility of a 220-mph-plus top speed. Initially Mercedes said its 800-volt battery pack could accept over 850 kW of fast-charging power, needing just five minutes to add 250 miles of range back, but then it came back and said the concept is able to charge at over 1 megawatt, rendering any range or charging anxiety basically moot. Then there are features like an active rear diffuser that slides out at high speeds and a soundscape like that of a classic AMG V8; we know AMG is working on simulated shifts for its EVs, too.
We don’t know exactly when Mercedes will debut the new AMG GT 4-Door Coupe, but it should be within the next few months. It will be joined soon after by a swoopy SUV built on the same platform, and AMG has said it’s also considering an electric two-door GT coupe.
