The long version

Mercedes spent nearly six years turning a genuine Formula 1 hybrid power unit into something that could survive road use, and the result is a car whose maintenance requirements have become almost as famous as its lap times — services measured in the tens of thousands of dollars, an engine with F1-grade rebuild intervals, dealers with only a handful of technicians qualified to touch it. Owners vetted for genuine enthusiasm still find themselves limited less by desire than by scheduling around the car's own mechanical fragility. What driving happens skews heavily toward supervised factory and track events.