Tested: 2023 Mercedes-Maybach S680 4Matic Is a Bargain of Sorts
From the May/June issue of Car and Driver.
For most of us, scoring a good deal means snagging a two-for-one coupon on Cinnamon Toast Crunch at the grocery store or receiving a random check for $2.84 from a class-action lawsuit you forgot you joined. But for other people, a good deal looks like the Mercedes-Maybach S680 4Matic—a quarter-million-dollar V-12 limo that offers silver champagne flutes and a back-seat fridge. Step away from the guillotine for a moment, and we'll explain.
In the world of ultraluxury automobiles, as with mainstream vehicles, SUVs are the chic thing and command premium prices. The last V-8 Bentley Bentayga S we tested cost $302,910, and a V-12 Rolls-Royce Cullinan can easily cross the half-million-dollar mark. Against those yardsticks, the Maybach we drove looks like a steal. Consider what $245,650 gets you: a 621-hp twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V-12, rear seats to shame the ones you might find on a private jet (complete with tray tables), and power rear doors you can control with hand gestures. Enjoy your glass of Louis Roederer, Jedi, as you use the Force to close your door.
Meanwhile, the high-dollar SUVs—even Mercedes-Maybach's own GLS—tend to blend in with all the other body-on-frame behemoths on American roads. But a sedan the size of a giant SUV? Now we're talking street presence, and the S680's 133.7-inch wheelbase is within a half-inch of a Chevy Suburban's. The effect is one of extravagant menace—like you want to meet whoever climbs out of the back, but also, maybe you don't. And even though the S680 is a mutated strain of S-class, nobody mistakes it for an off-the-rack Benz. Should you need to teach onlookers how to pronounce it, here's a handy mnemonic tool: It's not your-bach, it's my-bach.
While the S680's $6000 Executive Rear Seat Plus package brings two of the most luxurious chairs in a modern automobile, your chauffeur will have a pretty great time up front too. That V-12, with its 664 pound-feet of torque, simply shrugs off the S680's 5301 pounds and rips this land yacht to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds. The S680 blows past the quarter-mile in 11.9 seconds at 120 mph, figures that put it roughly door to door with a C7 Corvette Stingray. Benz's four-door leviathan serves up more body roll than a racing sloop but still posts an impressive 0.92 g of stick on the skidpad. A car this large doesn't seem like it should move like this, but that's part of the appeal—a few dozen layers beneath the genteel limousine, there's a sports sedan awaiting an imprudent prod of the throttle. Rear-axle steering helps enable lively responses, with as much as 10.0 degrees of countersteer with the 19-inch wheels (Mercedes relegates the 21-inchers and staggered 20-inchers to 4.5 degrees).
So, back to price. The S680's $232,750 base sticker puts it in rare air. Yet it seems like a bargain for a car offering so much luxury, performance, and V-12 star quality. Maybach exists in a weird space, a premium variation of an already upper-crust marque, but without quite the badge snobbery of a venerated stand-alone like Bentley or Rolls (the two companies Mercedes-Maybach overtly identifies as competitors). In other words, this nearly $250K car feels like it could justifiably cost $100K more. If you can write that check, the S680 is sedan writ large.
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