Three rotary knobs on a center console. That’s what Mercedes-AMG wants you to focus on inside the next-generation GT 4-Door Coupe, revealed in interior photos from Affalterbach on March 6. In a luxury segment drowning in touchscreens, AMG is betting that serious drivers still want something to grab.
The knobs are labeled Response Control, Agility Control, and Traction Control, forming what AMG calls the RACE ENGINEER Control Unit. One dials in throttle response from the electric motors. Another adjusts cornering behavior.
The third sets traction control intervention across nine stages. It’s a deliberate, almost defiant gesture: physical hardware tapping directly into the car’s digital nervous system.
But let’s not pretend AMG has gone analog. The dashboard still looks like the display wall at a consumer electronics show. A 10.2-inch digital instrument cluster and a 14-inch multimedia touchscreen merge into a single unit angled toward the driver.
An optional 14-inch passenger screen sits alongside. Add the ambient lighting that paints the doors, dash, console, and even the cupholders in selectable colors, and the cabin is anything but restrained.
The tension is the point. AMG is trying to serve two masters — the track-day enthusiast who wants immediate tactile control and the luxury buyer who expects a rolling lounge. The low, sports-car seating position borrows from the two-door GT.
The rear gets standard individual seats for two, with floor recesses carved out for knee room. There’s also an optional three-seat bench for families who happen to own something with nine stages of traction control.
Michael Schiebe, the Mercedes-Benz board member who also chairs AMG, said the interior was designed so that “even when stationary, the vehicle’s driving dynamics are immediately tangible.” That’s corporate speak for wanting the cabin to look fast standing still. The motorsport-inspired diamond quilting on the door panels and the galvanized inserts on the optional Performance seats suggest AMG’s designers took that brief seriously.
Everything runs on Mercedes-Benz Operating System, or MB.OS, the same software backbone underpinning the new CLA. AMG-specific display styles include telemetry readouts and race data screens under the TRACK PACE mode. The flat-bottomed steering wheel carries two round DRIVE UNIT buttons with built-in color displays, plus roller and rocker switches — more physical controls in a world that keeps deleting them.
The panoramic glass roof comes standard. An available upgrade called SKY CONTROL splits it into individually switchable segments that toggle between clear and opaque. At night, illuminated AMG logos and racing stripes project onto the glass, synced to the ambient lighting.
It’s theatrical, bordering on excessive, and precisely the kind of feature that will either thrill or horrify depending on your tolerance for spectacle.
Carbon fiber trim covers the console. Two wireless charging pads sit up front. The climate vents are integrated so cleanly into the dash architecture that adjusting temperature apparently requires voice commands or the touchscreen — no physical HVAC controls survived the cull. So much for the analog rebellion.
Mercedes has not yet shown the exterior, revealed powertrains, or named a price. The outgoing GT 4-Door ranged from roughly $103,000 to $208,000. Expect the new one to climb from there.
What AMG has done is draw a line in the cabin. The screens handle information. The three knobs handle the car.
Whether that division holds up on a back road or a racetrack remains to be seen. But in an era when most interiors feel like tablets bolted to dashboards, AMG is at least arguing that performance should involve your hands, not just your fingertips.
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