Mercedes-Benz AMG GT 4-door - long-term review

Context is all when it comes to a car like this. It’s a challenging beast in soggy, rural Herts, the expensive matt paintwork not at its best coated in country road crud. But during a trip to LA, I spotted several scything through the freeway traffic, and they looked magnificent. One was wearing the optional AMG five-hole high gloss polished ceramic forged 21in wheels, which added a bit of a SoCal Mooneyes look. “The nose is sharky, and the bonnet features fantastic powerdomes,” AMG exterior designer Vitalis Enns told me during the launch. “The windscreen has a deliberately fast rake, and the shallowness of the windows emphasises the body sides.

"At the rear? Well, this car really does have a fantastic ass.” Never better appreciated than in California.