There are different levels of wealth. There’s “I build my own cars, make rockets to Mars and I’m buying Twitter” wealth. There’s “My midlife crisis involves buying a major newspaper (like the Washington Post) and getting a $38 billion divorce” wealth.
Then there’s mere “captain of industry,” “patron of the arts,” “pillar of the community” wealth. Call it quiet wealth – eye-watering levels of assets, but you’ll never know about them because, well, such things just aren’t discussed. It’s bad form and all that.
The Mercedes-Maybach S580 is the luxury car for those people. If “Mercedes” and “S580” sound familiar, that’s because there is a Mercedes-Benz S580 (On the Road, November 2021). It’s a lovely car, and you’d be reasonable for thinking it was the ultimate expression of the large Mercedes sedan.
You’d also be wrong.
The two cars share the same architecture, the same twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter EQ-Boosted 32-valve V8 making 496 horsepower. Yet they are vastly different automobiles.
The Mercedes-Benz S580 is a car you drive. You can drive the Mercedes-Maybach S580, too – and it’s tremendous. Quick, smooth, quiet, composed, yet capable. But the party, as I noted in my review of the Mercedes-Maybach GLS600 SUV (On the Road, April 2021) is in the back.
Luxury options, luxury price
To properly enjoy this car, you should factor the salary and benefits for a driver into the equation. Rear-seat passengers in properly optioned Maybachs are treated to recliners, folding tables, a wine chiller, individual climate controls and separate programming on their rear-seat screens.
Happily, our test car was properly optioned. The base price of the 2022 Mercedes-Maybach S580 is $184,900. Ours had $45,100 in extra-cost options.
The silver aluminum-fanned open-pore walnut wood trim? That’s $3,200. The two-toned Cirrus Silver/Obsidian Black paint job? Add $14,500.
The car’s upholstery is the
MANUFAKTUR Leather Package ($8,000). And this one has been treated to the Executive Rear Seat Package PLUS (capitalization is Mercedes’). Four-place seating for the entire vehicle, a center console with dual folding tables and rear cupholders – that are heated and cooled – costs $6,000.
E-ACTIVE body control is $6,500. That’s so you don’t spill a drop of the champagne you’re sipping in the back seat when your driver takes Skyline to the benefit at Filoli to avoid the backup on Interstate 280. Our test car included the refrigerator rear center console ($1,100) and champagne flutes ($3,200). I’d show them to you, but Mercedes’ press fleet wisely decided that no good could come of $3,200 in glassware in a car going from journalist to journalist.
Electric comfort doors in the rear – allowing you to close them without leaning forward – are $1,350. Those wheels the car is riding on – the 21-inch Maybach exclusive multi-spoke champagne flute wheels – run $1,300.
With $1,050 destination and delivery, the as-tested price of the Mercedes-Maybach S580 4MATIC is $231,100. Fuel economy is 15 mpg city, 24 mpg highway. No one buying this car will notice.
Just as there are different levels of wealth, there are different ways of looking at that price tag. It’s roughly the cost of 10 Honda Civics (On the Road, December 2021), about two Jeep Grand Wagoneers (On the Road, April 2022) or approximately a half of a Rolls-Royce Wraith (On the Road, August 2020).
What a car like this defies is any traditional computation of value. It’s a luxury item; its worth is determined entirely by its desirability. And you have to appreciate Mercedes here. It already is a luxury brand. The Mercedes-Benz S580 is, as mentioned earlier, an excellent luxury sedan that could easily stand as the company’s ultimate state-of-the-art luxury car.
But they went further. They built the Mercedes-Maybach S580. And it’s brilliant.
Mike Hagerty, vice president of membership for Western Automotive Journalists (waj.org), has been writing about cars since 1997. Read more of his reviews on his website (MikeHagertyCars.com) and follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/mikehagertycars).
