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.
Yet in an effort to give you more than you might get in a lesser car, the engineers have made simple tasks complex. Take, for instance, turning on the heated steering wheel. On a BMW, this is easy. There's a button on the steering wheel, which you readily find and press. There didn’t appear to such a button in the S580. If there is one, it’s not easy to find.
In fact, there are few buttons to be found anywhere in the S580. Instead, the control you're looking for is likely somewhere in the enormous center-mounted infotainment screen, buried in some sub-menu of a sub-menu. And while designers insist eliminating buttons simplifies the layout, the number of menus you must navigate to do something simple doesn’t seem luxurious.
True modern luxury is represented by simplicity, restraint, a paring down. Walk into a Gucci boutique or even and Apple store, and you’ll understand luxury merchandising. There’s a visual haiku at work. If Gucci displayed their merchandise like Walmart, they couldn’t charge so much.
And that, ultimately, is the problem with the 2022 Mercedes-Benz S580.
And the engineers know it’s true. That’s why they’ve engineered it so that you can ask the car to turn on the heated steering wheel for you, which you do with a vocal command. This way, you can ignore the morass of menus.
Other features have changed as well, and not for the better. The power seat switches no longer move in the direction of adjustment; they remain fixed, so you wonder if they’re working. The ambient lighting now pulses in different colors as if you’re in some cheap dance club. And the head-up display now shows so much information, it’s hard to figure out what you should be paying attention to.
Of course, all of this can be changed on the giant center-mounted touchscreen, but good luck finding the setting to change it. This car is festooned with choices, an anarchy of engineering in which no one wanted to make a decision on what this car should be.
And yet, at its heart, it remains one of the finest cars in the world.
It’s unearthly quiet. Its seats are supremely comfortable, and capable of a surprising slumber of massages. Their bolsters pop out as you turn the corner to hold you in place. The S580’s mild hybrid system provides the effortless power you can expect in a car of this class. And its ride and handling are sublime.
But the anarchy of choice inherent in its engineering is a dereliction in its design. By giving its drivers too many choices, it’s made none as to what this car’s demeanor should ultimately be.
The 2022 Mercedes-Benz S580 provides one of the finest driving experiences you can buy — as long as you don’t have to look for the heated steering wheel button.
2022 Mercedes-Benz S580
Base price: $117,700
Engine: 4.0-liter V8 Biturbo with EQ Boost
Horsepower/Torque: 496/516
EPA fuel economy (city/highway): 17/25 mpg
Length/Width/Height: 208.2/76.9/59.2 inches
Ground clearance: 5.1 inches
Cargo capacity: 12.9 cubic feet
