GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Benz stretches S-Class further

The reign of the standard S 600 Maybach as the biggest and best of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class limousine family hasn’t lasted long.

Instead, Mercedes-Benz is bringing back the name and style that has been a favourite of dictators, royalty and captains of industry alike from 1963 to 1981, with the extra-long-wheelbase S 600 Maybach Pullman.

But because it can’t quite separate itself from its more recent traditions, the Pullman becomes the top-end of the Maybach family, which sits at the top-end of the S-Class family, which sits at the top end of the Mercedes-Benz range.

For the first time in the 50-year life of the Pullman badge, Mercedes-Benz has moved to make it part of the full-time line-up, news which is sure to please former owners and occupants, from the fictional, like Ernst Stavro Blofeld, to the notorious, like Pablo Escobar.

Other notable celebrity Pullman owners have included Frank Packer, Coco Chanel, Hugh Hefner, John Lennon, Aristotle Onassis, Elvis Presley and even Jeremy Clarkson.

While the world’s entertainment arena has been full of Pullmans, it’s also had a reputation as the preferred wheels of the world’s most evil men. Before he was run out of town, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos owned four Pullmans, Saddam Hussein had one, as did Haiti’s Francois Duvalier, Cambodia’s Pol Pot and North Korea’s Kim Jong-il.

The self-proclaimed Emporer of the Central African Republic Jean-Bedel Bokassa had one, as did Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Yugoslavia’s Marshal Tito, the Albanian mass murdering Communist leader Enver Hoxha, Russia’s Leonid Brezhnev and the Shah of Iran.

That’s in the past, Mercedes-Benz says, and the new 6.5-metre long limousine has just four doors and delivers exceedingly rich and sumptuous surroundings for its rear-seat passengers.

Benz claims it will have the best legroom in the automotive world, but you’d better be rich as well as tall if you want to stretch out back there. Prices for the Pullman will start at half a million euros when it goes on sale early next year.

Designed from the ground up to be driven by chauffeurs, the Pullman will still move the metal, thanks to a biturbo 6.0-litre V12 engine and a seven-speed automatic transmission. While Mercedes isn’t talking about its acceleration numbers (hardly the point, after all), it will say the 5980cc engine gives the Pullman 390kW of power and 830Nm of torque from just 1900rpm, which should be just about enough.

It will have two forward-facing rear seats for the VIPs and two, foldable rear-facing seats for the slightly less important. And, of course, there will be a retractable partition to protect those in the back from sniffing the hired help, but it’s not just a partition. It is raised and lowered at the touch of a button, but also uses Magic Sky technology to go from clear to dark at the touch of a different button.

Daimler’s board member responsible for sales, Ola Kallenius, insisted the model was hugely customisable, even though its standard fittings are highly exclusive.

The job of making a car’s cabin seem enormously spacious is a whole lot easier when there actually is enormously spacious. It starts with a 6.49-metre overall length.

That’s more than a metre longer than the S-Class Maybach’s 5453mm overall length and you have to add another 200mm more to that gap to get to the long-wheelbase version of the S-Class limousine.

Its 4418mm wheelbase is 1053mm longer than the Maybach’s, too, and all of that is dedicated to the rear-seat occupants. It’s also 100mm taller, at 1598mm, than the rest of the S-Class range.

It’s also decadently trimmed inside, especially as its rear seats can recline up to 43.5 degrees in the 'rest' position. The Maybach uses the S-Class’s trick of electronically adjusting the backrest and the seat base and leg rest separately, in an effort to keep the passenger’s hip point in the same place for safety reasons.

In its more-usual 'work' position, the seats recline at up to 19 degrees, combined with a calf rest that is adjustable for length and angle, and with 60mm more legroom than the S-Class Maybach, it can be used freely without the seats interfering with the feet.

The headrests also score a standard extra pillow and the interior, from the roof to the door frame and from the seat consoles to the detailing, is fully lined with leather. The roof also holds three analogue dials for the rear-seat VIPs, to give them readouts on temperature, speed and time.

There are also rear-window curtains and several different levels of privacy and, for entertainment, Mercedes-Benz fits an 18.5-inch monitor (in the 16:9 format) just in front of the partition and hooks it up to Burmester 3D surround sound.