Mercedes-AMG just tipped its hand. The Track Sport concept that surfaced last October in cryptic camouflage wasn’t a design exercise or a show-stand teaser. It was a working prototype for two cars: a new AMG GT Black Series and a GT3 race car that will carry the three-pointed star into IMSA and World Endurance Championship competition.
The announcement, made Monday, confirms what the spy footage at the Nürburgring has been hinting at for weeks. Two camouflaged GT coupes have been circulating the Nordschleife — one trimmed in red, one in highlighter yellow-green. Red is the GT3. Yellow-green is the Black Series. Mercedes wants you to know the difference, even under the wrap.
The previous GT Black Series, which launched in 2021, wasn’t exactly restrained. A flat-plane-crank 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 pumped out 720 horsepower. It hit 60 mph in 2.9 seconds.
At Car and Driver’s Lightning Lap, it posted a 2:37.0 at Virginia International Raceway — still the third-fastest time any road-legal car has ever set there. Mercedes-AMG now says the next one will be “the most radical Black Series model to date.” That’s a bold claim from a company that already built something most owners were too scared to take to a track day.
The critical detail here is the homologation angle. GT3 regulations require a production road car as the basis for the race machine, and the Black Series will serve that role. It means the aero isn’t decorative.
The massive rear wing, the reshaped bodywork, the aggressive diffuser — all of it has to exist on the street car so it can exist on the race car. Think Ford Mustang GTD, but from Stuttgart.
Analysis of the released images reveals telling differences between the two prototypes. The GT3 car dumps its exhaust behind the front fenders, race-style. The Black Series appears to route its side-exit pipes rearward, just ahead of the rear wheels, or possibly through the rear diffuser.
The street car retains ADAS sensors in the windshield. The race car has mandatory emergency equipment on the cowl. One curiosity: the Black Series prototype appears to have Lexan door windows, which would need to become glass before any U.S. customer takes delivery.
A hybrid powertrain seems unlikely despite the 805-hp plug-in setup available in the GT63 S E Performance. Battery weight is the enemy of a car whose entire reason for being is lap times. The smarter bet is wringing more from the twin-turbo V-8 that already makes 603 hp in the GT63 Pro, probably pushing well past the old car’s 720-hp mark.
Mercedes hasn’t offered pricing, but the math isn’t hard. The 2021 Black Series stickered at $327,050. The track-only GT Track Series recently commanded $385,000. Expect this new car to land somewhere in the high $350,000 to low $370,000 range — serious money, but not hypercar territory, which is part of the appeal.
The GT3 race car likely won’t compete until the 2027 season at the earliest. Mercedes currently campaigns the previous-generation AMG GT in GT3 trim, and that car is getting long in the tooth against newer Porsche, BMW, and Corvette entries. The timing isn’t coincidental. AMG needs fresh hardware.
Testing has been extensive. Since the Track Sport concept’s reveal, the prototype has run at Immendingen, Bilster Berg, Portimão, and Monteblanco before graduating to the Nordschleife. That’s not a publicity tour. That’s an engineering program in full swing.
A realistic timeline puts the Black Series road car announcement in mid-to-late 2026 as a 2027 model. Mercedes promises more details soon. Given how much they’ve already shown — and how little they’ve actually said — “soon” can’t come fast enough.
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