Very first Drive Evaluation
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Raising the flag.
Take a excellent look at the new S-class coupe. That is correct, slow down and cease clicking your mouse or swiping your screen for a handful of seconds. The auto is gorgeous, no? But photos don’t even capture its huge size, its presence, its curves. It is not a supermodel, a waif of a sports car developed to appeal equally to gawking adolescents and these far more chronologically advanced but equally insecure. This is a modern day Mercedes, fully realized.
An further second to keep in mind the CL-class, please, that old lady of a coupe that’s been haunting Benz dealers for years now. Okay, accomplished with that, no eulogy necessary. Mercedes sold fewer than 500 of them last year. We will not be surprised if it finds more purchasers for the new B-pillarless S550 in the very first month of sales, which most likely will be October. Pricing has yet to be announced, but count on it to commence close to $ 120,000.
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So the S-class coupe is costly, yes. As it must be, for a automobile that stands atop the Mercedes product variety. Fire up the 4.7-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 and the exhaust rumbles louder than does the S-class sedan’s, regardless of the fact that it is the exact same engine creating the exact same 449 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque. But the coupe also feels faster to accelerate, to shift, and to shed speed. Cutting 77 inches of wheelbase tends to make it a sportier proposition than the sedan, and when we lastly get one particular on our scales, the coupe should be lighter by a couple hundred pounds, also, if Mercedes is to be believed. Sprinting via visitors in the land of Gucci, the S550 coupe feels much more nimble than any CL ever has, regardless of measurements that track inside a few inches of its predecessor in every dimension.
Like in the sedan, the coupe has every single manner of contemporary technology constructed-in or prepared for order. This is a vehicle that can massage you while perfuming the air that you breathe. That can drive itself for short bursts, and brake for you when your consideration falters. Its massive glass roof can turn as opaque as the average driver’s understanding of the engineering that underlies these systems. Driving the S550 coupe, you nearly feel sorry for the product planners and engineers, under such intense stress to come up with 1 Far more Factor.
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For the S-class coupe, that function is “active curve tilting,” a function of the car’s active suspension system that operates up to 112 mph. This predictive program scans the road up to 49 feet ahead with a stereoscopic camera and then hydraulically adjusts every single spring perch independently to compensate for up to 3 inches of physique motion versus the standard air suspension. Now the caveat is that we’re not acquiring this technology on the S550 coupe (or the S63 AMG coupe) here in the U.S. Our cars will all be fitted with 4-wheel drive, and active curve tilting is restricted to rear-drive automobiles.
That is okay by us. Obtaining driven a rear-drive S500 (European models wear different badging, but it’s the exact same auto as our S550), we wouldn’t really feel bad if somebody referred to as active curve tilting a gimmick. To be clear: We’re not. But we didn’t locate the expertise pleasurable, as it created handling unpredictable. And we do not see the point in building technologies that purposefully removes important feedback from the driving encounter. Thankfully, curve tilting can be turned off, and the Comfort and Sport settings of the ABC suspension provide what they guarantee.
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The interior of the S-class coupe is almost indistinguishable from the sedan. A proper 3-spoke steering wheel replaces the odd 2-spoke unit in the sedan and the coupe gets the new touch-pad controller for the infotainment method just like in the newest C-class. Our test vehicle was fitted with the unique “Edition 1” remedy, so its dashboard inserts resemble a vintage Telefunken radio, with flowing lines on a piano black background, and a crystal nodule on the center console serves as the touch point to pop open the cover of the storage bin. Subtle but effective. Less understated are the Swarovski crystals obtainable in the headlamp assemblies, 17 each and every in the daytime operating lamps and 30 in the turn-signal indicators, even though none in the LED headlights themselves.
The S-class coupe is every bit as regal as its sedan counterpart. Yet when you open a single of the 2 4-and-a-half-foot-extended doors and slide into the quilted leather seats, almost everything appears just a bit a lot more opulent. Possibly it’s the tidier 4-place package or the steeper windshield rake. Or probably it is just the aftereffect of staring at the exterior sheetmetal. What’s unquestionable is this car’s position as Stuttgart’s new flagship.
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