Eh trying to say Nurburgring times are useless is just as circlejerky as treating them as gospel.

Ring times are a rough measure of relative track performance. To be useful, one has to consider the context of the lap time(s) like the driver, tires, whether it was a factory effort, and whether that manufacturer is prone to cheating.

So if a car is with 5-7 seconds a lap of a comparable car, generally they’re in the same ballpark, unless there’s something out of whack with the lap times, like one car on a vastly superior tire.

To buy a 750S new? Hard to really say because it depends on your net worth and how you’re spending your money and where you live. A single person in a low cost of living area could buy a car like this while making $400-500k maybe, but you’d need a lot more if you’ve got a family or live somewhere more expensive, or have a lot of money tied up in real estate.

Everyone’s situation is different so it’s hard to say. Especially because there’s a level where you can buy a car like this, but then that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a financially responsible move.

R8 is gone, NSX is gone, 570S replacement is a lot more money, and the Vantage is long in tooth, so there is a market opportunity there.

But I think you hit the nail on the head, why move the formula towards two cars that don’t sell very well? Because some customers complained that the GT was too stiff or too loud or something?

Yeah this car seems like it was made for an entirely different customer than the 1st gen and I suspect MB will find out that it will be very difficult to find enough of those.

The 8 series does not sell very well. Mercedes already has the E class and S class coupes. It just doesn’t seem like the market is asking for another heavy 2+2 GT in that price segment.

I can see where Mercedes probably did their market research on why some of their typical customers may not have bought the first gen GT. But sometimes chasing the people that didn’t like your car is a fool’s errand. They’re certainly not going to win over 911 customers with this car.

Ultimately maybe the big thing here is platform sharing. Maybe MB knows they’ll lose some buyers but this car costed a lot less to develop.