Sunday Drive: Mercedes-Benz S560 coupe

Tuesday, 22 January 2019

The Mercedes-Benz S560 coupe is a veritable blitzkrieg of luxury. Including the ability to warm your elbows.

**MERCEDES-BENZ S560 COUPE

Base price:** $257,600.

Powertrain and performance: 4.0-litre turbo petrol V8, 345kW/700Nm, 9-speed automatic transmission, RWD, Combined economy 8.5 litres per 100km, 0-100kmh 4.6sec.

The Mercedes-Benz S560 coupe is packed with technology, but no longer leads the tech charge for the German brand.

Vital statistics: 4656mm long, 1644mm high, 2945mm wheelbase, luggage capacity 470 litres, 20-inch alloy wheels.

We like: As glam and gizmo-heavy as you'd expect, beautifully built.

It's big, but the styling hides the size well. Still need to watch those doors though.

We don't like: Sitting in the back, massive doors.

Perhaps it'll be a swanky soiree, or maybe it'll be a neighbourhood bring-your-own-snags barbeque.

The interior of the big coupe is super luxurious and beautifully made.

Anyway, they'll cross paths, swap notes. Each a proud owner of a high-end Mercedes Benz.

Subject one, holding keys to today's tester, the S560 Coupe, will be smugly recounting about how his car is the best this brand can build.

Lots of length, but it's still a hassle to get in and out of the back seats.

* The worrying joy of warm elbows

* You'd be surprised how much work goes into making a new SUV seem old**

And, yet, as the full list of features that makes it the benchmark for excellence, development and safety unrolls, subject two twigs he/she's also bought into pretty much the same core stuff, in a different package yet for a whole lot less.

That's because subject two has bought the marque's latest sports utility, the GLE, a product which – Benz admitted when I drove it at the international media reveal recently – adopts much of the cleverness that debuted on the S-class.

Agreed, local GLE local pricing has yet to be established. Yet going on experience with the outgoing edition, what we'll see around mid-2019 might be expected to cost $100,000 less than the evaluation coupe.

Does that make the two-door big boy a bonkers buy-in? The sobering reality is that the biggest prestige cars are hit hardest by depreciation. Yet knowing this doesn't diminish the driving pleasure from a model so impressive in its swish-ness and obvious affluence.

If the performance aspect is as important as the overall plushness … well, rest assured this edition doesn't undercook. All S-class variants are rear-wheel drive and have a 4.0-litre V8 bi-turbo and nine-speed transmission. This one is not the quickest, yet still sees 0-100kmh in 4.6 seconds. That's rather rapid for something of its size and status.

About that. The attention you gain will be a powerful hook for those who want it. Rock up and everyone looks. It's not simply the overall shape – though that is definitely glam, being so long and lean – as the finish and detailing; those 20-inch AMG 10-spoke alloy wheels are stunning in their own right.

Ooh-ahh steps up when you slide inside that richly-appointed interior with loads of high-quality materials throughout and a design that, while obviously related to other Mercedes cars, is still special. Nappa leather upholstery is awesome; the multi-adjustable, heated, cooled, massaging front chairs embrace like Russian oligarchs.

The most singularly impressive feature are the two high-resolution display screens, now behind a single smooth glass cover. The one directly in front of the driver displays dials and instrument clusters, in varying formats from modern to a classic representation I preferred, the other dedicates to a huge variety of conveniences – beyond all the usuals there are sub- and sub-sub menus. Want to alter the aroma of the scent diffuser? No worries. Set up a specific cabin ambience, complete with theme music? It can do that as well.

The car has facility to prepare itself for cornering, to the extent of leaning in a touch, and when that occurs the seats' side bolsters will self-adjust to give extra support. It must be awesome on the autobahn.

This all happens when the car is put into Curve mode. Ancillary to the usual Comfort (the default) Sport, Sport Plus and Individual dynamic settings that are common in the brand's more expensive products, it works with the Magic Body Control system, which is able to 'read' the road surface ahead through the stereo cameras mounted in the top of the windscreen then adjust the suspension to suit. The hunkering and leaning won't transform the car into a road rocket designed to destroy a mountain pass, nor is it utterly infallible. But it is definitely is good to gloat about.

But, thing is, it's something the GLE buyer can talk up, too, because the same system is tailored for that model, too, but in an improved format that might seem even more impressive. Exclusivity? In today's world, it's a fleeting thing.

Not to say the coupe is outmoded. Actually, it's still the barometer for refinement, so quiet as to be a car in which you really can hear yourself think, unless you chose the Sport settings, which quite rightly brings in the engine's menacing grumble.

It's a large car that squanders its size. Though the design is smart enough to not make it look like a bulky behemoth, at more than five metres long and the best part of two metres wide, it still is. Parking isn't too bad because it has every conceivable assist, but beware snagging the long doors, and though the cabin purportedly allows a quartet of adults, the back seat is cramped and accessing and egressing is not dignified.

This also takes shine off a car that proffers so much luxury and insulation from the outside world as to make you feel like you're in a fabulously appointed bubble.

What erodes its status more in my eyes is knowing the technology transition to other family product presenting at much more achievable money is already under way.