Next Level

You Can’t Improve Perfection, Said Someone. Mercedes-benz Disagrees
 

- Anubhav Sharma

 

Which is the best car in the world? It’s a question often asked by many but satisfactorily answered by very few. Best, you see, has become subjective in today’s world of filters and qualifiers. Some feel the fastest 0-100-kph time makes a car the best; some feel futuristic tech-wizardry makes a car the best, some decide it on the basis of space/comfort/horse power/design, or whether it can fly or float. It is almost impossible to answer that question, for us commoners who lust after a lot of cars. But not when you are Mercedes-Benz. Apart from flying and floating, the new S-Class makes a very strong case for being the best car in the world.

As with all facelifts these days, the changes on the outside are not in your face. The bumpers are redesigned with larger air intakes and the headlights are now standard with a multi-beam all-LED system. You will probably miss it, but the front grille now has active flaps — things that only supercars used to have — that adjust automatically to three different positions depending on how much air is needed for cooling. To indicate its position in the M-B hierarchy, the S-Class gets three-strip LED lights inside the headlamps. Not that it settles the Russian doll debate on the design similarities between the S, E and the C, but it is still a differentiator. All in all, the changes only elevate the elegance quotient in the S-Class.