From the February 2006 issue of Car and Driver.
Tally all the engine possibilities and it’s accurate to say that Mercedes-Benz currently offers—whoa!—43 models. Ask the average schmo on the street to name the most famous, and he might say, “McCambridge,” or he might say, “Gullwing,” but he’ll probably say, “S-class.” For more than 50 years, S-class Benzes have been the most succulent sausages in the Teutons’ tray of vehicular sauerkraut.
For 2007, the S-class lineup has been simplified. No more short- and long-wheelbase cars, just the 124.6-inch edition, 3.1 inches more majestic than its predecessor. The lineup now comprises the S550 tested here, whose $86,175 base price is actually $1650 shy of its S500 forebear’s, followed in April by a 510-horse V-12 S600, with a sticker close to $130,000. An all-wheel-drive S550 4MATIC should arrive in November, and the inevitable AMG variants will manifest when AMG and every F1 driver on the planet are damn well ready.
Apart from the S550’s swollen fender haunches-reminiscent of those hockey-puck shoulder pads that Larry King jams into his suits-what you notice first about this car is its seats. Really. They’re sumptuous without being saggy and offer 14-way “multicontour” adjustments that can even change the distance the cushion extends beneath your thighs, and there are optional multilevel fans blowing cold or hot winds up your keister, and there are side bolsters that suddenly stiffen in reaction to cornering forces, and there are center lumbar chambers that expand and contract to change your position twice per minute, and there’s even a vigorous Magic Fingers option that feels like small pine logs rolling slowly down the sluiceway that is your spine. We drove this S550 from Manhattan to Ann Arbor, stopping only to replenish 23.8 gallons of premium unleaded, and felt as if we should have continued on to Iowa. Similar praise can be heaped on the vast and comfy rear chairs, where you can tuck your loafers beneath the tall front seats, spread out, and fully open the Times’ Arts & Leisure section. These new seats are so good that they bear the seal of approval of the Aktion Gesunder Rücken, which is either a German outfit that rates products for spine-friendliness or a bunch of guys who look for life forms under rocks.
In the past, Mercedes expended a moderate load of warm air hyping its SOHC three-valve-per-cylinder V-8s but now has fast-forwarded to the world of twin-cam four-valvers, with superlative results. This new variable-valve-timing V-8 purrs out 382 horses at 6000 rpm but stockpiles all 391 pound-feet of its peak torque right there on the bottom shelf, ever accessible from 2800 to 4800 rpm. The engine is as smooth as a poetry major on Ambien—more than once we tried to start the bugger while it was running. Unlike your average poet, however, it is practically mute. In fact, the S550 is quieter at idle, at full throttle, and at a 70-mph cruise than a Bentley Continental GT and is exactly as quiet at 70 mph as that perennial exemplar of soporific tranquillity, the Lexus LS430.
Which somehow makes the S550’s accelerative thrust—right on the city limits of hot roddom—all the more thrilling. Apply a little brake torque and you can paint five unholy feet of Continental rubber on the deck. The S550 legs it to 60 mph in 5.3 seconds-0.8 second quicker than the last S500 we sampled and 0.1 second quicker than the new BMW 750i, the car die Benzkinder most fear. To 100 mph, the S550 lags behind the big BMW by only a tenth, but its quarter-mile ET is two-tenths quicker. Top speed for S550s fitted with M+S-rated tires is choked to 132 mph, 23 mph shy of the fun available with the optional Z-rated rubber.
Counterpoint
What we have here no long qualifies to be just a car anymore. It’s something…grander, like somewhere on it in tasteful chrome there should be a NASA badge. Call it a freeway module. Or a highway capsule. You just cannot make a car ride any more smoothly, any more comfortably, any more cozily, any more warm and fuzzily. Game over. So what will Mercedes do with the next generation S-class, since its ride is all improved-out? Possibly add more services and edges covered in fur? A coffeemaker? Or more dashboard buttons? There are eight involving the radio, which I am afraid of since I can’t find the on switch. It’s a stupendous thing, whatever it is. —Steve Spence
BMW started the revolution with its iDrive single-knob control system, and others have tried their own approach. All have been complicated and annoying to use, up until now. Mercedes has it right with its updated COMAND system; unlike BMWs infuriating and complicated iDrive, COMAND is simple to use. I hopped in the car and, without an owner’s manual, had everything programmed and preset to my liking in 10 minutes. No cursing or tantrums, no having to look up stuff. I’m not smitten with the exterior styling—the heavily flared wheel arches are a bit over the top–but everything else about the S550 makes it a perfect 10 on my scorecard. —André Idzikowski
By objective measures, this S550 is a fabulous car. It easily runs the quarter in the 13s. It corners and stops like a sports car. Its suspension smothers bumps. And the big Mercedes is supremely quiet and comfortable. I’ll even allow that the Mercedes version of the grand German control knob works better than any that came before it. But somehow, the car still fails to make my mouth water. Perhaps I’m put off by the overly styled sheetmetal, which lacks the grace of its predecessor. I’m also not taken with the synthetic feel in the major driving controls and the electronics-heavy interior. Even in a luxury sedan, I’d like more driver involvement. —Csaba Csere
Dude, Who Stole Your Radio?
We’re not gonna launch into a red-faced rant about the complicated COMAND system. For one thing, we don’t have enough pages. But it does strike us as risky to force the average S-class owner–he is, after all, 61 years old–to corral the cognitive courage necessary to wend his way, via an aluminum mouse, through approximately as many computer programs as are required to launch an ICBM from the USS Alaska. To summon music, for instance, you must:
a. Tilt the mouse forward to get to the top of the computer screen’s main menu.
b. Twist the mouse left or right to place the cursor on “Audio.”
c. Push the mouse straight down to say, “Yes, I do want to view the audio menu.”
d. Repeatedly tilt the mouse backward to toggle through your options: FM, AM, Satellite Radio, CD, DVD, MP3, or Audio Off.
e. Poke the mouse straight down to select the mode you desire.
f. Twirl the mouse left or right, now that an FM radio dial has magically appeared, to advance from channel to channel. (Note: You’re in seek mode only. If you wish to listen to weak stations, prepare to start all over again.)
g. Direct your attention away from the computer and away from the mouse and to the top-right spoke of the steering wheel, where a five-function rubber pad the size of a silver dollar will allow you to hear the station you’ve so diligently pursued.
h. Should that prove too complex, direct your attention to a small knurled wheel on the passenger side of the center console, where volume can alternately be adjusted.
Up, down, sideways. Twist, turn, poke. Hands for some functions, fingers for others, eyes continuously scanning the steering wheel, dash, screen, and center console. Exactly where is the radio? It’s everywhere. And nowhere. Can the COMAND system be mastered? Of course. Just not today.
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
