xpensive wrote:I beg to differ, contrary to what many of F1T's aficinados believe, much of the different ownerships and associations within the automotive industry is virtually unknown to the general public, hence the different stickers on the VW's.
Agree with you 100% here X. In the US at least, only hardcore car people understand (or even care) who owns what. The subject always interested me, and I rarely found someone who even knew that Ford owned Jaguar, let alone GM owning Saab, VW owning Bentley, etc.
xpensive wrote:AMG's relation to Mecedes is of course crystal-clear to the likes of yourslf and JET, but I'm afraid that it might be confusing to the rest of the world, as if Porsche would suddenly call their racing cars RUF-Porsche or something.
Disagree with you here. I'm in Los Angeles, which is a pretty good gauge for the US. Here at least, RUF and AMG are apple's and oranges. RUF is a third party group like Brabus. Only gear-heads are going to know what they are.
AMG though is a different story. It's *much* more well known.
HOWEVER... You're right in that the average layman doesn't fully understand what it entrails. Here in the US, most view AMG the same way they do an M badge on a BMW, or an R badge on a Jag. To most, it's just a badge that signifies, "This Mercedes is fast and expensive." They don't know that AMG is its own robust organization within Mercedes. It's just seen as a premium badge for a Benz. So yes, the AMG badges are very well known and prestigious here (as are the M badges on BMW's). And like the M badge with BMW, AMG and Mercedes are seen as synonymous. AMG = Premium Mercedes.
And they're not rare either. Every Mercedes showroom here is filled with AMG branded Mercedes. They're the first thing you see when you walk in the door. In fact, the AMG badge is so prestigious here in LA that some groups are even stereotypically known for rebadging their regular Mercedes with AMG logos to make it appear they paid more for their car. (Not to be offensive, but one of the local dealers here actually refers to this as a "Persian Conversion".)
Maybe it's different in other parts of the globe, but here in the US, the idea that Mercedes could distance themselves from their F1 team with an AMG badge is just... silly. You might as well say they were distancing themselves from their F1 team by replacing all of their "Mercedes-Benz" badges with 3 pointed stars. (Alright, not quite. But close.)
X, when you and Mun describe AMG, you're giving a perfect description of Brabus. AMG though? Here in the US there simply isn't any way to separate those three letters from the three pointed star.
TLDR
AMG is very well known in the United States and is synonymous with "Premium Mercedes-Benz".
