Ted, the Hammer was one of AMG's first models. I believe it came out in 1987. In the 80's AMG was just a young start up company, their sales where nowhere near today's. The only AMG's I seen that came before the Hammer are 126 sedans/coupes, and 123 coupes. AMG really became huge when Mercedes started selling their products in MB dealerships with full warranties. In the USA this happened in 1995 with the AMG C36. MB bought out AMG a few years ago and the flood of AMG cars started. When AMG was bought out they went from just another Merc tuner like Carlsson, and Brabus to a in-house tuner like BMW MotorSport. Just think today in the USA you can buy 11 different AMG/M cars and in 1993 that number was a big fat zero!