TRIUMPH OF THE TRISTAR

There are cars and then there are cars that ruin all others for you. The Mercedes-Maybach S580 is the latter.

- PARTH CHARAN

GQ FYI The Maybach's wheelbase is 180 mm longer than that of the current-gen S Class.

THERE'S A CERTAIN finality with which the rear doors of the new Mercedes-Maybach S580 seal shut. And it has little to do with the fact that I didn't have to reach for the door handle, sitting inside a nappa leather draped den of sensory indulgence. Merc has decided that the millionaire's last labour of the day shouldn't be a tedious one. There are, after all, calls to be made, moustaches to be twirled, or whatever it is the world's one percent do. Instead, a simple wave of the hand prompts the rear passenger door to gently swing shut on its own with Maybach's proprietary active noise-cancelling tech kicking in, cocooning you in a bubble of tranquillity. It's one of the few cars capable of transporting you without moving an inch.

The 2022 model is so much more than a stretched-out S Class. Sure there are visual similarities, but the slatted chrome grille, meshed-out air dam, and those 19-inch monobloc alloys instantly mark this limo as a Merc's Merc. One that is, at least in CBU (complete built-up) guise, sold out till 2023 in India. Unlike the directly imported S680, the S580 is locally assembled. It's a solid 370 lakh cheaper than the S680, which costs *3.2 crore. It also features a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 instead of the V12 found in the imported one.