Most of the large luxury car companies have high-performance divisions. They make $100,000-plus cars, which are as fast as any available in showrooms, including America’s fast muscle cars. The grandfather of these, the Mercedes AMG program, has reached its 50th anniversary.

The AMG division primarily makes very fast editions of existing Mercedes models. And they tack on tens of thousands of dollars for the AMG performance engines, suspensions and bodies. For example, Mercedes mid-priced E-Class cars have a base price of $52,150 for the E300. The AMG E43 model has a base price of $72,400. Fully loaded with the available features and equipment, the price rises to $95,000.

The Mercedes S-Class flagship has a base price of $96,600. The AMG S65 version has a base price of $226,900. Fully loaded with features, that figure rises to over $250,000.

To celebrate the anniversary, Mercedes made the following announcement:

AMG – these three letters stand worldwide for supreme automotive performance, exclusivity, efficiency and high driving dynamics. The company founded by Hans-Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher in 1967 is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2017. In the course of this half century, Mercedes-AMG has further consolidated its position as an extremely successful sports car and performance brand with numerous successes in motorsport and the development of unique road-going vehicles. Today, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler AG, the Affalterbach-based company represents the sporting spearhead of the Group. For each of the now around 1600 employees, the focus will be on the brand promise of “Driving Performance”, which unites the core strengths of AMG: cutting-edge technology and a passion for dynamic, emotionally appealing products. The basis for this is the phenomenal engine technology of Mercedes-AMG. And the company from Affalterbach has lastingly underpinned its high development capabilities with the two in-house designed sports cars, the SLS AMG and the AMG GT. AMG started into the anniversary year with record figures under its belt, delivering almost 100,000 vehicles in 2016 and thus growing by more than 40 percent while being in the middle of the biggest strategic model initiative in the company’s history.

The models have made Mercedes a lot of money, and they have burnished its reputation at the same time.

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