Mercedes-Maybach S650 Test Drive Review – Uber Luxury

Performance – Mercedes offers four engine options for the S-Class in India – S350d, S450, S560 and the S650, the latter two are for the Maybach. While the S560 uses a V8, the S650 uses a 6.0-litre bi-turbo V12 that outputs 630 HP and a.. hold your breath.. 1000 Nm. That’s enough to propel the car from standstill to the ton in 4.7 seconds. With all that torque, you might expect the car to pin you back in the seat when you floor the pedal, well, not quite. Power delivery is linear and the motor is thoroughly refined, emitting a sporty snarl in the top-end.

You might not get pinned to your seat but the S650 will gather pace in a smooth and refined manner

There is good amount of grunt lower down and it builds pace quite effortlessly, in fact, the S650 pulls so strongly that you will not realise what speeds it has gathered, it’s extremely quick and yet effortless. Top speed is limited to 250 km/hr and this car never runs out of breath, it just keeps pulling and pulling, with the mid-range being strong and being quite a screamer in top-end too. Mated to this massive engine is a 7G-Tronic gearbox (not a 9-speed) which does a good job of swapping cogs smoothly. You can manually take control of gears using the steering mounted paddles but even when you don’t, you will never realise when the transmission is at work. With all the performance, fuel economy is around 5 km/l.

Driving Dynamics – The Mercedes-Maybach S650 is a heavy car, it tips the scales at 2300 kgs but doesn’t feel so because the steering is light at low speeds and weighs up brilliantly at high speeds, offering a lot of communication too. There are 4 driving modes – Curve, Comfort, Sports and Individual which alter the engine, transmission, suspension and steering (there is no Eco mode here but there is an engine stop/start function). Individual seems the best bet as you can set the suspension into curve which tilts the car by 2.65 degrees into the direction the car is turning.

The Maybach remains shockingly stable at all speeds, it belies its dimensions

This car also gets Magic Body Control which adjusts the suspension by reading the road surface ahead but the low profile tyres on our test car meant the ride was still a bit stiff for an S-Class. A slew of other technologies make sure the drive experience is great, like active brake assist that automatically applies brakes if it senses something ahead, lane keep assist that can auto steer, crosswind assist that applies brakes to ensure vehicle stability, self levelling suspension and anti-slip regulation. Power is channeled to the rear wheels while the cross-drilled brake rotors (sourced from AMG) ensure strong stopping power. The big gripe though is the poor ground clearance and you can raise the ride height (automatically goes back to low position once you cross 120 km/hr) but you still have to be careful over bad roads.