Another curious annoyance is the fact that the electric arm that calmly hands you your seat belt only activates when the ignition is on, somewhat upsetting the engrained behaviour of sit, click, start.
When you do fire up the S500 though, all sins are almost forgotten.
A lovely deep burble and unmistakable rhythmic throb comes from the 335kW/700Nm 4.7-litre twin-turbo V8. It has none of the ferocity of some of its AMG siblings, just an effortless smoothness â€" power and purpose. Torque is sent to the rear wheels via a nine-speed automatic transmission.
Squeeze the throttle and the big coupe gathers pace easily. Hitting a freeway on-ramp, you see 100km/h almost too quickly, there is no hesitation or tapering of power delivery. The car could keep going, smooth and linear to its electronically governed top speed of 250km/h where we know it would cruise happily and quietly all day, every day.
On all roads, and in all weather, the S500 is quiet, comfortable and generally effortless to live with.
It’s thirsty though, the fuel consumption graph amusingly limited to a 20-litres per 100km maximum level. We regularly saw this maxed out, the claimed 8.6L/100km combined cycle clearly achieved in optimal conditions which definitely don’t include driving in Melbourne.
Low-speed behaviour is light and easy, although we found the automatic parking took the car’s 20-inch rims far too close to the gutter for our liking (on multiple occasions) and each time we abandoned the computer to park the big Benz ‘by hand’. The hidden reverse-view camera is a gem though.
Comments
Post a Comment