5 Luxury Features The New Maybach S-Class Has That Your Car Will Probably Never Get
There's a certain level of luxury that provides more than just made-to-order materials and premium cabin construction. On top of being comfortable, quiet, and unassailable on the road, brands like Mercedes-Maybach have to go beyond the standard approach to upscale motoring. They have to offer an abundance of customization choices for the affluent, with the sort of attention to detail that doesn't allow for the mislaying of a single stitch.
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Mercedes recently invited me out to drive their latest flagship sedan, the big, stately Maybach S-Class — specifically the V12-powered S 680. It's received a number of aesthetic upgrades, like a new front fascia, new interior touches, and a suite of new tech. It's the sort of vehicle that needs to appeal to the most discerning crowd, one for whom preposterously powerful engines and a quiet cabin aren't enough to impress. The Mercedes-Maybach has to go further.
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There are a lot of impressive features on the S-Class like the pull-out tables in the back, the rear-seat touchscreens, and even a stunningly good 31-speaker 1,500-watt stereo that help add to the sedan's allure, but those are the sorts of things you can find on some pretty common cars these days. Touchscreens? Good stereos? The Mercedes-Maybach S-Class has to stand out by offering more innovative, over-the-top features: namely the stuff that you'll likely never see in your standard commuter. Thankfully, that's exactly what it offers.
Suspension that talks to other cars
Ever been driving along in a neighborhood you didn't know, and hit a pothole that shocked you? Maybe you saw the pothole too late to avoid it, or perhaps you just underestimated how large it was? What if there's a particularly rough stretch of road on your daily commute? Well, the Maybach S-Class has you covered in all of those scenarios, and everyone else who owns an S-Class, too. Other luxury cars scan the road ahead to try to spot upcoming potholes, but the Maybach rides on Mercedes' Airmatic suspension that now has cloud-connected predictive damping to make the ride as smooth as possible.
Knowing where you are and where you've been, the suspension can anticipate rough roads ahead and adjust to minimize the impact of road imperfections. And it's not just your car: the S-Class will transmit the same data to other S-Class vehicles so that they too can experience the best ride possible over rough roads. Now, if only Mercedes could send that data to local municipalities and get them to fix the roads, what an amazing leap forward in technology that would be.
Memory settings for where the vents are pointed
Your car may have memory settings for your seat, your side mirrors, and for the position of your steering wheel, but it's pretty unlikely that you'll ever have memory settings on your regular vehicle for where the climate control vents are pointed. Well, at least beyond "These vents are pointed right at the place I last remember pointing them at." The Maybach goes well beyond your poor memory.
The climate control vents on the Maybach-Mercedes S-Class can be controlled physically with your hands, pointing them at your hot (or cold) spots, but if that's too much work, there's another option. The vents can also be directed via touchscreen and set to the preferences of individual drivers. Instead of having to adjust the vents to your liking every time you and a spouse swap keys (or, every time you and your chauffeur take turns piloting the S-Class), you can just use the memory function.
A few touchscreen-reliant vehicles have the sort of vents you direct via screen controls, but generally they can't also be physically controlled vents so you can also adjust airflow without digging into the menus first. It's an evolution of a simple feature and it's one of those sorts of details you'd never see just by looking at the car. And, because the S-Class is all about the passenger experience too, there are memory profiles available for the fully-reclining rear seats as well.
A fridge with champagne flutes, and cupholders designed for champagne flutes
It's not new in the luxury world to have refrigerated drinks, or even the aftermarket: fridges for cars have been around for quite some time. But Maybach has perfected the art of keeping your high-end beverages cold. Between the two rear seats is a fold-down compartment that gives way to a modestly-sized fridge (an $1,100 option), designed to keep your beverages cold.
Mercedes-Benz
Above the fridge is another pop-open compartment that stores two silver-plated champagne flutes made by Robbe & Berking – who just so happen to be fifth-generation German silversmiths. The champagne flutes (a $3,200 option) are matched to specially-fitted cupholders, too. Keeping them from tipping over when you're on the go.
Mercedes-Benz
As if having silver-plated champagne flutes inside the car weren't enough, the Mercedes-Maybach can also be equipped with the optional 21-inch wheels with a matching champagne flute spoke design (a $1,300 option). If you aren't paying attention, you'll probably miss it, especially while the S-Class is in motion, but the spokes are designed to look like little champagne flutes.
Pillows with your family crest
As part of the Mercedes Manufaktur Made to Measure program, you can have just about any combination of fabrics, stitching, and colors you can think of on the interior and exterior of your car. According to Mercedes, this includes over 150 exterior paint colors and 400 interior colors, or the ability to match the paint to any sample you bring them.
Mercedes, to go along with the drive program for the Maybach S-Class vehicles, showed off their brand new Beverly Hills studio, also called the Made to Measure Hub, where Manufaktur clients can go to fully spec out the interior of their cars before they are built. This is a process that happens after purchasing the car, in an artsy environment with employees guiding buyers through the design process. Definitely not something that'll happen with your standard family crossover purchase.
More than just a bunch of Maybach logos or pre-determined colors, the Manufaktur program allows for specified logos, monograms, or even family crests to be embroidered onto the headrests and pillows of your S-Class. Naturally, it doesn't come cheap to get this level of personalization. The Manufaktur interior package was a $10,500 option on the already-quarter-million-dollar car that I tested out, but there's little like it in the world of non-luxury vehicles.
80+ Logos on the car
I've developed a habit over the years of counting the rings on trees to see how old they are. It's probably the same internal glitch that has me out here counting the number of logos on a car. So naturally, when I saw the S-Class' Maybach logos everywhere, it activated the counting part of my brain.
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When I reviewed the Ford Expedition King Ranch, I counted 16 logos. The Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing was ultra-proud of its logo and name, checking in at nearly 26 representations of the brand. The Mercedes-Maybach S-Class Sedan is really proud to display its name in just about every location possible. So proud, in fact, that it has more logos on the front bumper than the Cadillac had on the entire car.
Mercedes-Benz
Counting the Maybach logo, as well as the full word "Maybach" spelled out on both the interior and exterior of the car, there were 84 locations that marked it as a Maybach. I'll spare you the one-by-one walk-through, but some of the most prominent locations are on each wheel (twice), on each headlight (twice), on the headrests for all four seats, on the gas and brake pedals, on all four of the door sills, and of course, the standard exterior emblems.
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The biggest source of the Maybach logo, though, was the lower grilles on the front bumper, both of which have 20 logos each (I didn't even include the partial ones). When I told the Mercedes folks about this little counting expedition I'd been on, they pointed me towards an SL-Class 680 Monogram Series, which will likely top my leaderboard for quite some time if I ever test it. The SL has its hood and convertible top both blanketed in Maybach logos.
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