Some might say that Mercedes-Benz doesn’t make mistakes. To that, we respond, have you heard of the X-Class? The short-lived pickup truck cost Mercedes a massive chunk of money, and it’s still fresh in the Germans’ memory. If anything, it taught Mercedes that you sometimes have to pull the plug.
We don’t think the four- and six-cylinder models will go away, however. A pool of early adopters out there love the idea of an AMG that can drive a few miles on electricity alone. But there’s a larger pool of buyers who remember iconic V8 AMGs like the SLS, CLK Black, and C55. They want and are willing to pay extra for the soundtrack, so why not make even more money out of them?