The Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 Cabriolet will blow your mind

Be still my beating wallet. This is the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 Cabriolet revealed, appropriately, among the rich and beautiful at Monterey Car Week in California. On the face of it this is just a decapitated, repainted version of the obscene Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 shown at Pebble Beach this time last year, but somehow it’s so much more than that...

I mean, just look at it. It really does look like a Riva speedboat that’s sprouted a set of wheels. Or a very expensive pen. But surely Mercedes’ greatest achievement here is to make a car that’s 5.7m long and 2.1m wide and only find space for two seats. If that’s not excess we don’t know what is.

Like its Coupe sister car, said wheels are centre-locking 24-inch dustbin lids, while 740bhp from four electric motors fed by an underfloor battery pack mean four-wheel drive and 0-62mph in sub-four, with an NEDC range of over 310-miles.

Cartoonish proportions are backed up by headlights that are no more than slits, and a grille Lady Penelope would be proud of. But the real magic happens when you peel back the white fabric roof (with interwoven rose gold threads), exposing crystal white nappa leather, illuminated buttons stitched into the seats and a full width digital display. The turbine-inspired dials are analogue needles on a digital background, while two head-up displays keep you briefed on the car’s vitals.

Want more theatre? The centre tunnel, usually reserved for the transmission in a combustion-engined car, is floating and transparent and used to visualise the car’s energy flow with blue fibre optic lights…. at the very least it’ll be a talking point. As will the open-pore wooden floor inlaid with aluminium – a trick borrowed from the world of yachting.

Unfortunately it’s just a Vision for now, but nothing about the technology is beyond the realms of possibility. So, let’s hope enough well-heeled and well-lubricated punters at Pebble Beach tell Mercedes they want to buy one immediately. The world will be a better place with this thing sailing around.