AMG marks 45 years of massaging Mercedes-Benzes

The big 4-5 is not an anniversary we usually make a big deal of. But when arch-rival BMW is marking 40 years since its M Division first created the even-more-ultimate driving machine, you can't blame Mercedes-Benz for wanting to remind us that its AMG brand has been in the go-faster game even longer than M GmbH.

It all began in 1967 when two engineers, Hans-Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher, left Mercedes-Benz and set up a tuning shop to help pay the bills for their racing habit. Their names tell you where the A and the M come from, but what about the G? It's for Grossaspach, the small town where Aufrecht was born, and close to which he started the business, in an old mill.

Our first thought for marking AMG's big day was a gallery of the 45 best AMGs of all time. But then we thought, "Naah. Too much work." Also, to come up with a list that long might mean scraping the barrel with some obscure products that, in retrospect, may have somewhat diluted the AMG mystique: a 2.3-litre four-cylinder version of the midsize E-Class sedan, for example; an AMG G-Wagen off-roader motorvated by a 2.4-litre, 100-hp diesel; heck, there were even stretch limos by AMG ... and a minibus.

Our search for the top 10 AMGs certainly did not lack source material, thanks to the 470-page, three-kilogram book that AMG published to mark the occasion. In fact, in the book AMG even provides its own list of the six best cars in its history. With those as our starting point, we added four more of our own. Remember, learn, and enjoy.