The first thing the buyer says when he walks up to the yellow Mercedes AMG GT R is “Oh my gosh.” The car sits in an auction yard with a strip of clear plastic taped over a window, and by the end of the clip he is jump starting it from a lithium ion pack, finding a trunk that, in his words, “stinks,” and strapping it onto a trailer headed for Chicago. The banner across the top of the video reads “I Bought The Holy Grail AMG GT R Track Unit Corporate Mercedes Abandoned,” and the clip is labeled “Part 1.”

The video was shared on TikTok by @sparrow00015, an account that posts the clip with only hashtags in the caption and does not name the man filming. The man on camera, in a yellow T shirt, is the one who bought the car and talks through every discovery.

The trouble starts before he even opens the door. “So there’s no way to put this car into neutral?” he asks, then answers himself: “The engine has to be running because of the special transmission it has. It needs hydraulic pressure.”

Then he sees the window. “They had this on the window because it wouldn’t go up, but they didn’t check on it,” he says, as the frames show the plastic sheet taped across the opening. Inside, the seats pass his first look (“Seats good”), and he points out the carbon fiber roof and what he calls a “200,000 dollar sticker on this thing.”

The dash is a different story. “Believe it or not, these cars actually had, like, a factory defect where the dash leather would peel up,” he says. “Not to this extent, though. This is really bad.” He sniffs the cabin and adds, “Doesn’t smell bad. That’s a good sign.”

Why He Says It Looks Like a Flood Car

The hood pops open on its own while he is looking around, which makes him jump. Close shots in the video show grime caked into a door sill and a dusty plastic housing under the hood. His verdict is blunt: “If you just saw this right now with no context, you’d think this is like a flood car, which I guess it still could be a flood car, although they didn’t list it that way.” He follows it with, “This doesn’t look taken apart,” and walks the body, calling out “little scuff here, no big deal” and saying the body “looks to be in good shape.”

Power changes his mood. He clips on a starter pack under the hood, points out that the car’s battery is lithium ion, “a very expensive battery,” and the window that would not move suddenly does. “She’s got power,” he says. “Why didn’t they do this at the auction?” Inside, he marvels that “you can change the modes right from here.” The jumper keeps losing power, but he gets the trunk open, looks in, and says only, “Oh, shoot. No. Yeah, that stinks.” His summary: “Lots of cleaning on this car.”

Corporate Car Clues and the Trip to Chicago

Once the car is being loaded, he notices something odd. “This is owned by Mercedes Benz,” he says, pointing to what he calls “some weird wires thing.” “Was this some kind of press car? I don’t know what is happening.” A yard worker, asked to guess what he paid for a GT R he describes as having 29,000 miles, tosses out 65 and then 75. The buyer laughs that he was hoping for a guess of 120 to “make me feel a little bit better,” and never says the real number on camera.

Under the car, he says it “looks perfect under here,” with flat paneling and “nothing’s messed up at all.” The last frames show him in the truck: “We are all loaded up here, ready to hit it back to Chicago.” The plan is to put it on the lift the next morning: “We’re gonna get into this engine. I have a 2020 AMG GTR.” The clip ends there, so what the engine inspection found is not in this video.

Mercedes Benz USA publishes the specifications for this model. In its 2017 model year quick reference guide for the AMG GT R, the manufacturer lists a handcrafted 4.0 liter biturbo V8 rated at 577 horsepower and 516 lb ft of torque, paired with a seven speed AMG Speedshift dual clutch transmission, and notes “extensive use of carbon fiber.” That guide covers the 2017 model year, not the 2020 car in this video.

What to Check Before Bidding on a Car That Looks Like This

His line “they didn’t list it that way” is the real risk: a clean listing does not prove a car stayed dry.

Run the VIN first. The National Insurance Crime Bureau offers VINCheck free of charge, and in an August 2026 release the NICB said it shows whether participating member insurers have reported a vehicle stolen and unrecovered or declared it a salvage or total loss. The Missouri Attorney General’s consumer office also points buyers to the NMVTIS database run by the U.S. Department of Justice to see whether a car received a flood or salvage title, and warns that some databases may not be current.

Look in the places he looked. The NICB lists musty odors, water stains, rust, silt or mud, mismatched upholstery and moisture inside the vehicle’s parts as signs of flood damage. The Missouri Attorney General adds mud or residue in the trunk, under carpets and floor mats and on the pedals, plus rust on upper door hinges, trunk latches and console screws. A smelly trunk and grime in the door sills, both shown in this video, are exactly where to start.

Read the paper title for brands such as flood, salvage or rebuilt. The Missouri office warns that a clean title does not prove a car is undamaged, because titles can be laundered across state lines.

Plan for a dead car. If the model cannot be shifted to neutral without the engine running, as he says of this one, bring a jump pack and arrange a trailer that can winch or drag the car, rather than counting on rolling it.

Get an independent inspection. The Missouri Attorney General recommends a trained technician with no tie to the seller before money changes hands.