The most impressive safety features actually guide the car so that it doesn’t get into an accident. My favourite is the latest version of Distronic, a radar-guided adaptive cruise control that Mercedes-Benz introduced 15 years ago in its S-Class two generations prior. The latest version ties up with the car’s electric steering system, as well as its brakes. It allows the S-Class to operate semi-autonomously under certain conditions. What exactly those conditions are remain unclear, as this test-drive was too short.
But along a country road leading to picturesque Lake Muskoka, the S500 showed off its wizardry by keeping a constant distance from the vehicle ahead as it traced a right sweeper up a gentle incline. All without steering input.
It was unable to repeat the feat, though. The all-digital instrumentation kept prompting me to take control of the steering each of the subsequent times I tried to get the car into its smart “self-drive” mode. Not wanting to argue with something that probably has more computing power than the grey matter between my ears, I complied.
The new S-Class is so clever, it is able to adjust its suspension to suit the road ahead – the result of a technology it first unveiled in 2008. Called Magic Body Control, it uses scanners to detect changes in road contour, and adjusts its suspension accordingly. The system works brilliantly in a special circuit, where the car went over a sizeable hump at 30km/h with nary a jolt.
But in the real world, its benefits are less obvious – travelling at speed over rough roads in Toronto still elicited the occasional faint rattle in the cabin. In fact, the ride quality of the turbo-diesel S350 not fitted with Magic Body Control seemed a tad better.
At the wheel, the S-Class has never been a driving enthusiast’s car. This one is no different, even if it is somewhat more enjoyable on account of its effortless powertrain (first sampled in the SL500 roadster) and superior refinement.
Its two-spoke steering wheel harks back to the golden age of motoring, and its electric steering system is amazingly communicative and responsive. The 4.7-litre V8 S500 is also perceptibly quicker than before, clocking a sizzling 4.8-second dash to 100km/h.
The diesel S350, which will arrive here with the petrol S500 and petrol-electric hybrid S400 in the fourth quarter of 2013, is truly impressive. It behaves almost like a petrol saloon, with no detectable diesel chatter. That’s quite an achievement, considering how intrinsically quiet the S-Class is. Indeed, this is a limo you can conceivably love, given time.
This article was first published in the September 2013 issue of Torque.
2013 Mercedes-Benz S500 4.7 (A)
ENGINE 4663cc, 32-valves, V8, turbocharged
MAX POWER 455bhp at 5250rpm
MAX TORQUE 700Nm at 1800-3500rpm
GEARBOX 7-speed automatic with manual select
0-100KM/H 4.8 seconds
TOP SPEED 250km/h (governed)
CONSUMPTION 11.6km/L (combined)
CO2 EMISSION 199g/km
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