We all think of AMG as Mercedes-Benz’s official go-fast division. And it is: Mercedes bought a controlling interest of AMG back in 1999 and took over completely in 2005, at which point it became unquestionably a key component of the Three Pointed Star. It even has its own sub-brand, Mercedes-AMG.
Mercedes-Benz was at the heart of AMG from the start. The company was started by ex-Daimler Benz engineers Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher (the “A” and the “M”) in 1967 and made its name tweaking Mercedes products for racing and the road. It signed a “cooperation contract” with Mercedes in 1990 and co-developed the C 36 AMG for 1993.
But in between times, AMG was free to go off on some weird tangents. One of the weirdest was the Mitsubishi Galant AMG. Just 500 were made from 1989-91, in two versions. And yes, it’s a genuine AMG machine.
What made the Galant AMG especially curious is that Mitsubishi already had the rally homologation Galant VR-4 by then (launched in 1988), which had things the AMG did not: a turbo, all-wheel drive and four-wheel steering.
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AMG had dabbled with Mitsubishis even before this. Enter the quite hilarious 1987 Debonaire V3000 Royal AMG, which had no powertrain modifications and was therefore probably slower than the standard car thanks to the extra weight of that body kit and all those AMG badges.
But back to the Galant AMG. The 2.0-litre engine was thoroughly reworked to rev to 8000rpm and make 127kW. It got a full body kit including a rear spoiler that started at the doors, enhanced suspension, that crucial AMG badging and colour-matched rims.
The Galant AMG didn’t really stack up on paper compared with the much more powerful VR-4, and the German company soon found better things to do (like make that C 36 AMG). But an ultra-rare Galant with an AMG-developed naturally aspirated engine seems impossibly cool from a 2021 perspective. Ever seen one?
