Eight things we learned about the Mercedes S-Class Cabriolet

The S-Class Coupe is available with the S-Class saloon’s Magic Body Control, which scans the road head and sets up the suspension according to incoming bumps. It will also lean into corners like a high-speed train to tuck the centre-of-gravity as close as possible to the apex.

Thanks to the chassis reinforcements and roof mechanism, the S-Class Cabriolet is available with…neither of these things, Happily, it rides perfectly comfortably without them. It’s not as if you’re short of gadgets to show off, anyway.

That said, the 577bhp, 663lb ft S63 version is so rapid, so relentless in its acceleration, you spend most of your time driving it hovering over the brake pedal ready to reign the thing in, because it doesn’t really like rough treatment. The weight properly catches up with it then. Better to relax in the entry-level £110k V8 version…

Yep, we’re as surprised as you are. But somehow the less frenetic pace of the S500 (all 449bhp of it, so it’s hardly slow off the mark) just suits the relaxed gait of the Cabrio so perfectly the thrusting nature of the AMG seems a tad overegged afterwards. Sounds more musical, too.

One: heated seats, front and rear. Two: heated armrests. Three: heaters in the headrest to keep your neck warm when the roof’s down on a chilly evening. Four: the crazy idea of a heater that lives in the dashboard and blows warmed air at your feet and face through adjustable vents. Nah, it’ll never catch on. 

When you’re sat next to Merc’s R&D boss Prof. Thomas Weber in a briskly driven S500, it’s obvious to ask him whom he thinks this car is actually for. Footballers? Bankers? Kardashians? “I think the young executives of Silicon Valley will like [this car]. The Apple and Google guys, maybe”. Perhaps Mr. Zuckerberg is more of a Bentley sorta chap.

This car has double-glazed windows and a triple-layer roof. It is therefore by some distance the quietest open car we’ve ever been in.

No, even in power-crazed TG-land, we don’t recommend this. We’ve not driven the S65 Cabrio yet, but given the S63 already feels like a tad too much car, and the hard-top S65 isn’t a patch on its V8 sister, we can tentatively predict the 612bhp bi-turbo V12 Cabriolet isn’t going to be the most harmonious soft-top known to mankind. Unless we decamp to Germany and live in an autobahn service station, in which case it’s probably perfect. All £192,000 of it…

Of course Mercedes wants to present the image its car is peerless. But when you look at the facts, it has a point. Audi and BMW don’t offer two-door version of their respective A8 and 7-series limos.

An Aston DB11 Volante is some way off yet. And Ferrari’s not-the-FF-any-more GTC4Lusso is distinctly not a cabriolet. So, if you want a big, fast, four-seat super-luxo-roadster, it’s the big Benz, a Bentley Continental GTC Speed, or an open-top bus, pretty much. Unless you’ve got another preference?