This past week was not the first time I drove the redesigned 2022 Mercedes-Benz S580. The first time was in the fall, in Philadelphia’s Main Line, where I attended the Radnor Hunt Concours d’Elegance. There, among the blue bloods of the Main Line, ones who still hunted foxes, it seemed at home — and yet it didn’t. Later, in Greenwich, Connecticut, I was fortunate enough to drive the Mercedes-Maybach version, its top trim level. Once again, it was in its natural habitat, surrounded by the modern-day robber barons of Manhattan. I was flummoxed, so much so that I didn’t write a review. Now, having sampled it once again, this time among the unimaginable wealth of Miami and Palm Beach, I remained flabbergasted.
But then, I thought of a story a longtime Mercedes-Benz dealer once told me, and it clarified my confusion. The story came from a dealers’ meeting with Mercedes-Benz executives in the early 1980s. At the time, American luxury cars dominated the sales charts, sporting vinyl roofs, wire wheel covers and interiors draped in puffy velour and accented with petrochemical wood trim. But the American land yachts were festooned with power gadgetry: power seats, power windows, power door locks, power convertible tops, power sunroofs. Mercedes-Benz cars, even their top-of-the-line cars, didn’t have any such thing. Seats were adjusted manually. Power conveniences were noticeable by their absence. Dealers wanted to know why. The answer? Because they will break, and we want our cars to be reliable.
This is the story that keeps coming back to me every time I climb into the 2022 Mercedes-Benz S580. To drive this car is to experience unbridled German engineering, which seemingly no longer fears long-term reliability.
