MERCEDES-AMG Australia has confirmed that the eight lucky customers suitably qualified to purchase an example of its most viciously powerful model to date will be asked for about $5m in return for their Project One hyper car.

From a total global production run of just 275 cars, Australia and New Zealand has been offered one of the highest per-capita allocations anywhere in the world, partly thanks to the huge demand for AMG models Down Under, and well-heeled fans didn’t waste any time putting their hands up.

Speaking at the reveal of the mighty Project One in Frankfurt, Mercedes-Benz Australia CEO Horst von Sanden confirmed a before-taxes price of €2.275m which, after factoring in currency conversion, the crippling luxury car tax and other on-road costs, balloons the bottom line to a whopping $A5m.

Von Sanden did not reveal how many examples could have been sold given unlimited supply, but confirmed demand for the Project One was “more than eight” and a selection process had been formulated to decide who would make the grade and who would go without.

“As soon as the message got out there, there were immediate expressions of interest then we tried to come up with a fair selection process,” he said.

“For 275 cars worldwide there is clearly more demand than supply so there was a selection process. There were certain loyalty aspects taken into consideration.”

However, von Sanden said he was confident the situation would not be seen with any of the eight Australian-delivered Project Ones.

“I think the people who end up buying are genuine car enthusiast collectors and they want it for themselves,” he said.

As if a monstrous seven-figure price wasn’t enough to chat to the accountant about, the Project One will present owners with another sizeable bill in maintenance costs, with the high-revving 1.6-litre Formula 1-derived V6 requiring a major rebuild at 50,000km.

“We have to rebuild the engine. Whatever that means we don’t know now,” he said.

“At AMG we do have one dogma; value for money should be in equal level.”

The a major overhaul may seem unreasonable for a vehicle with a stratospheric asking price, but Moers said he believed only a handful of vehicles will actually require the rebuild, as many will never clock up the milestone.

All eight of the Australia-New Zealand allocation will heading to Australia. Where they’ll exactly end up is uncertain, through Wheels understands at least two of the cars will call Melbourne home.