Behind Every AMG Engine There's a Man Who Hand-Built It. One like Patrick Vogel

Well, that possibility would increase dramatically if your name were Sidney Hoffmann and you were a German TV presenter, entrepreneur, and petrolhead by excellence. The last of these three attributes of his (well, the first two might have played some role in acquiring the funds) is probably what made him buy a new Mercedes-AMG C63, which came with Patrick's name attached to the wonderful 4.0-liter V8 engine.

Apparently, AMG would want us to believe that Sidney Hoffmann (affectionately called "Sid") wanted to meet the man who built his engine, and so he tracked Patrick Vogel down to the AMG plant and asked him to talk a little about the assembly process. But since we're not eight-year-olds, we know this is just a thinly-disguised PR move initiated by Mercedes-AMG's communication department.

But bad acting aside, this thing that AMG has is truly remarkable. The Affalterbach company isn't the only one that hand-builds its engines, and it might not even be singular in assigning one man to each power unit, but it sure knows how to make something special out of it. And it all starts with that plate you get on your V8 or V12 engine. Most blocks get an embossed serial number, but AMGs are treated like important monuments: they get a plaque with the author's name on it.

Is that really necessary? Most certainly not. Few people go the trouble of meeting the man (or woman) who put together their engine, and the serial number is more than enough for identification purposes in case something goes wrong. So that's just Mercedes-AMG's way of making something special out of the ordinary.

These people are shrouded in romance as if their work were more than just your regular assembly line activity; we're led to believe they almost develop a certain bond with every engine they produce, as if each of them had its own personality. They're anthropomorphizing a piece of metal, and the really weird part is it's working. I mean, it's cool to have an engine with somebody's name on it, right?

Back to Patrick Vogel, here he is explaining to Sid how his engine came to be. It looks like Patrick isn't very confident in Sid's technical knowledge as he keeps things very simple. Or, as the video's description suggests, Patrick's probably done the filming during his lunch break, so there wasn't that much time to go into detail. Friendly advice to you, Patrick: keep assembling engines and don't think about becoming an actor. You're definitely a lot better at what you're doing right now.