LEADER in LUXURY

BAR- SETTING REFINEMENT IN A CAR DESIGNED TO BE THE BEST

Mercedes- Benz has refreshed its flagship sedan, the S- Class, with new design details, new engines and next- step updates to its automated Intelligent Drive system.

But all the progress still has to ensure the S- Class remains the benchmark for luxury motoring.

Driven travelled to Switzerland to see how the manufacturer is getting on. ( Hint: it’s quite good at this sort of thing).

With Driven reporting in from the official Mercedes- Benz X- Class ute unveiling in South Africa as well as the S- Class media launch in Switzerland, this week illustrates as never before, the diversification the German carmaker has gone through over the past few years.

But there are subtle “business as usual” symmetries here, despite the new metal.

Although the ute is a natural extension of the manufacturer’s light commercial vehicle arm ( with a bit of help from the Renault Nissan alliance), the updated S- Class furthers Mercedes- Benz’s peerless approach to doing what it does so well; building luxurious large cars.

Marketers and analysts will argue that, whether a company is updating the biggest or smallest car in its range, all the details still have to be right. That’s true of course; no one wants a dud, regardless of the sticker price. But there is something about each successive update of flagship S- Class — the traditional technological test bed not only for Mercedes, but inadvertently so many of its rivals — that raises the stakes. And then some.

More than 4 million S- Classes have been sold since it debuted in 1972. And the model has legs; it was the biggest- selling luxury sedan globally last year, proving more popular than its rivals even during a run- out year.

No one’s resting on laurels around at Mercedes, however. The updated S- Class features 6500 new components, including three entirely new engines; new in- line six- cylinder petrol and diesel power arrives under the S- Class’ broad bonnet, along with a new twin- turbo petrol V8.

For our market, the turbo- diesel six offers up 210kW peak power, which is around 10 per cent more oomph than the previous engine offered, but with less in the way of emissions. We won’t see the petrol six- cylinder in New Zealand initially, although in its home market it comes in two states of tune; 270kW and 320kW.

The twin- turbo V8 boasts 345kW and 700Nm of torque, and features cylinder shut- off when cruising to help keep fuel