Mercedes’ flagship now comes with two
doors
Luxury is often measured in excess. After
all, you probably don’t need a 32-room mansion with its own cinema, bowling
alley and racehorse hydrotherapy centre. But we’ve been trained to want
pointlessly lovely things. And the new Mercedes-Benz AMG S-Class Coupe is a
really rather brilliant pointlessly lovely thing.
The
S63 AMG Coupe is a rival for the likes of the Aston Martin Vanquish, Bentley
Continental GT and Ferrari FF
Starting with the obvious, the S-Class
Coupe is – as its name would suggest – a two-door, four-seat version of the
luxurious S-Class, replacing the now-defunct CL. Initially, it comes powered by
either a 4.6-litre bi-turbo V8 with 450bhp and 517lb ft in the S500, or as an
AMG, with a 5.5-litre similarly bi-turbo 8cyl with 582bhp and 664lb ft. Neither
of which is particularly anaemic. There are 4WD 4Matic options available in
other markets, but in the UK, we’ll only get RWD, Merc citing the usual
conversion to right-hand-drive cost versus take-up argument. But no matter,
with the AMG hitting 62mph in 4.3secs (the AWD manages a faintly ridiculous
3.9), it’s still a very rapid two-tonne behemoth. So we’re talking a Bentley
Conti GT or BMW M6 Gran Coupe rival, with a definite grand-touring bent.
Broad
front seats are firmly cushioned and offer excellent lateral support
The looks are slightly devisive, though
never actually offensive. All the GT car design cues are present, and in the
metal and with the right colour and wheel combo, it looks really rather good.
It’s not exactly petite at easily over five metres long and two wide, but this
is much more than just a chopped and channelled S-Class. The bonnet is long,
the waist high, and the swoopy window line falls away into a sleek bottom that
looks nothing like the saloon’s.
Inside, it gets a ‘floating’ dash, with the
immediate view dominated by a two-piece bank of 22nd-century pure TFT display
that looks about two-feet long, and enough fragrant leather to distress a great
number of cows. A massive panoramic roof is standard and makes the most of any
available light, and the car feels cocooned but roomy in the front, though
there’s a surprising lack of knee-room for the pair of back-seat passengers,
though I’m not sure S-Class Coupe customers are particularly bothered about
pretending to be in a minibus. Similarly, there is no diesel option.
Digital
screen replaces analogue dials
As you would expect of what Mercedes refers
to as the “supreme pinnacle” of its model range, there are toys galore,
including optional headlights that contain 47 Swarovski crystals – 17 angular
gems for the daytime running lights and 30 rounded cuts for the indicators –
hot-stone massage seats, a comprehensive head-up display that looks like a
telly has been projected onto the windscreen, a stonking Burmester sound system,
Merc’s Air Balance perfume circulation system and pretty much anything else you
can think of, including some options you couldn’t think of if you tried.
Suffice it to say that the list is long and surprising, and when you really dig
down into it, a bit irritating. Indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking that
all of this stuff is just for show, and that you’ll never really use it. But
you’d be wrong, as it’s all seamless and makes the S-Coupe into one hell of a
distance cruiser.
Not
much kneeroom in the back. Who cares?
The seats are wingback comfortable, and as
soon as you prod that V8 into life with a trademark AMG bark, you know that no
country, continent or possibly even planet will stand in your way. Mercedes
really has made the S-Coupe a flagship, and it makes for a fairly unique
driving experience. Slip the S63 into traffic, and you can engage the Stop and
Go Pilot function, at which point the car will take care of the steering,
brakes and accelerator in a semi-autonomous fashion, relieving the stress of
stop/start traffic. Head out on the motorway, and Mercedes reckons the S-Coupe
is the world’s quietest car in terms of wind noise, something to do with
“form-optimisation” and “aeroacoustics” complicated enough to make you feel
queasy. All I know is that it’s so quiet, you can hear yourself breathe. You
still hear the suspension working – the wheels still thump over expansion
joints and the like – but in terms of the susurration of air over the body,
there’s barely a whisper.
