Why the Mercedes-AMG One’s two-piece rear wing may be the coolest thing in supercar engineering

The two-piece rear wing that the Mercedes-AMG One hypercar uses is probably the coolest bit of tech ever fitted to a road car.

Or if it isn’t, it’s certainly a contender.

Its ability to generate downforce is incredible, and it looks cool – which never hurts.

But there’s a reason why it’s so sophisticated.

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The Mercedes-AMG One is one of the most sophisticated road cars ever made

The Mercedes-AMG One is fitted with a hypnotic two-piece active rear wing.

The shape of the wing changes depending on whether you select ‘Road Mode’ or ‘Track Mode’, and it can generate up to 1,500 pounds of downforce.

You can activate it with a button on a steering wheel that triggers an F1 DRS-style system.

At that point, the upper wing retracts, and all of a sudden, you’re 20 percent faster than before.

It’s incredibly sophisticated, and fundamentally reliable.

A while back, Mercedes had to recall a few units to fix a potential hydraulic leak, but the fix took about 90 minutes.

That’s an astonishing result for such a complicated system.

The reason why it’s so high-tech

Automakers love marketing their vehicles as ‘an F1 car for the road’, but on occasion, they’re right on the money.

That’s certainly the case here.

With the One, initially known as Project One, Mercedes-AMG took everything it had learned from its F1-winning cars and used it for a road-going hypercar.

It took a long time to develop, but it was worth the wait.

Only 275 were built, and some of them were reserved for key Mercedes-AMG figures like Toto Wolff and Nico Rosberg.

Lewis Hamilton also had one, but he sold it along with all his other cars when he decided to ‘purge’ his entire car collection.