Road Test: Mercedes-Benz S Class S63 2dr Auto

Luxury is often measured in excess. After all, you probably don't need a 32-room mansion with its own cinema, bowling alley and racehorse hydrotherapy centre. But we've been trained to want pointlessly lovely things. And the new Mercedes-Benz AMG S-Class Coupe is a really rather brilliant pointlessly lovely thing.

Starting with the obvious, the S-Class Coupe is - as its name would suggest - a two-door, four-seat version of the luxurious S-Class, replacing the now-defunct CL. Initially, it comes powered by either a 4.6-litre bi-turbo V8 with 450bhp and 517lb ft in the S500, or as an AMG, with a 5.5-litre similarly bi-turbo 8cyl with 582bhp and 664lb ft. Neither of which is particularly anaemic. There are 4WD 4Matic options available in other markets, but in the UK, we'll only get RWD, Merc citing the usual conversion to right-hand-drive cost versus take-up argument. But no matter, with the AMG hitting 62mph in 4.3secs (the AWD manages a faintly ridiculous 3.9), it's still a very rapid two-tonne behemoth. So we're talking a Bentley Conti GT or BMW M6 Gran Coupe rival, with a definite grand-touring bent.

The looks are slightly devisive, though never actually offensive. All the GT car design cues are present, and in the metal and with the right colour and wheel combo, it looks really rather good. It's not exactly petite at easily over five metres long and two wide, but this is much more than just a chopped and channelled S-Class. The bonnet is long, the waist high, and the swoopy windowline falls away into a sleek bottom that looks nothing like the saloon's.

Inside, it gets a ‘floating' dash, with the immediate view dominated by a two-piece bank of 22nd-century pure TFT display that looks about two-feet long, and enough fragrant leather to distress a great number of cows. A massive panoramic roof is standard and makes the most of any available light, and the car feels cocooned but roomy in the front, though there's a surprising lack of knee-room for the pair of back-seat passengers, though I'm not sure S-Class Coupe customers are particularly bothered about pretending to be in a minibus. Similarly, there is no diesel option.

As you would expect of what Mercedes refers to as the "supreme pinnacle" of its model range, there are toys galore, including optional headlights that contain 47 Swarovski crystals - 17 angular gems for the daytime running lights and 30 rounded cuts for the indicators - hot-stone massage seats, a comprehensive head-up display that looks like a telly has been projected onto the windscreen, a stonking Burmester sound system, Merc's Air Balance perfume circulation system and pretty much anything else you can think of, including some options you couldn't think of if you tried. Suffice it to say that the list is long and surprising, and when you really dig down into it, a bit irritating. Indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking that all of this stuff is just for show, and that you'll never really use it. But you'd be wrong, as it's all seamless and makes the S-Coupe into one hell of a distance cruiser.

The seats are wingback comfortable, and as soon as you prod that V8 into life with a trademark AMG bark, you know that no country, continent or possibly even planet will stand in your way. Mercedes really has made the S-Coupe a flagship, and it makes for a fairly unique driving experience. Slip the S63 into traffic, and you can engage the Stop and Go Pilot function, at which point the car will take care of the steering, brakes and accelerator in a semi-autonomous fashion, relieving the stress of stop/start traffic. Head out on the motorway, and Mercedes reckons the S-Coupe is the world's quietest car in terms of wind noise, something to do with "form-optimisation" and "aeroacoustics" complicated enough to make you feel queasy. All I know is that it's so quiet, you can hear yourself breathe. You still hear the suspension working - the wheels still thump over expansion joints and the like - but in terms of the susurration of air over the body, there's barely a whisper.

The AMG motor hums away beneath it all, utterly unstressed by cruising, and when you choose to push it, calmly forces the world into reverse. It's not hugely aggressive or face-deforming, just insistent and mighty. Once more, there's a raft of acronyms available to make the S-Coupe experience even less hassle, and, to be honest, I got a bit lost in the list. Again. Merc calls it Intelligent Drive, but if it gets any more intelligent, it'll probably become self-aware and be given the vote. Pre-Safe braking with pedestrian detection, Distronic-Plus cruise, Brake Assist with Cross-Traffic Assist, Active Lane-Keeping Assist, Collision Prevention Assist Plus, Highbeam Assist, Night View Assist. Basically, the S-Coupe monitors its surroundings constantly, in media unavailable to paltry human senses, and can make decisions without you even knowing - it'll predict what passers-by might do, steer itself in certain situations, brake if you fail to from speeds of more than 62mph, and even predict if it's going to get rear-ended in traffic, and so lock the brakes and draw the seat-belt pretensioners so that you don't get whiplash. We're looking at an autonomous car in all but name and insurance liability.

Sounds a bit overwhelming, but you never really notice any of it, except when you get to a destination feeling more relaxed than when you left. It really is that soothing. And even when you have to expedite a quick country road blast, the S-Coupe has yet another trick up its fathomless sleeves: Magic Body Control with a curve-tilting function. The concept is pretty much self-explanatory: with the system engaged, when you tip the Coupe into a corner, a pair of stereoscopic cameras mounted in the windscreen read the road ahead and adjust the suspension to absorb bumps exactly like on the S-Class, but this time also instruct the air suspension to lean into the direction of travel like a motorbike, keeping you upright and unruffled. In practice, it feels quite weird at first, but soon you find yourself driving with the system and gently carving through corners like a two-tonne skier. Interestingly, Mercedes makes a big point that, in which the system doesn't engage - but more for comfort. And it works. If you've got passengers that get travel sick, this is the £100k answer. It also feels like the kind of trick you won't tire of showing off.

Interestingly, though, the armour is not without chinks. The 7spd MCT gearbox in the AMG can still hesitate slightly or thump a change or two at inopportune moments, though there's a 9spd auto 'box due in the UK-spec S500 that deals with the issue. The steering can feel divorced at times, and even though the big S can do a passing impression of a much smaller car, there's always the feeling that you're being insulated from physics by lots of very, very clever electronics. It's not exactly a natural, seat-of-the-pants experience. There's also the fact that the AMG still feels slightly out of kilter with the general ambience of the S-Coupe.

If forced to make a decision on which to drive across Europe, I think I might be more tempted by the straight S500, which still delivers strong performance without the slight straining edge of the AMG, which definitely tempts you to illegality. It's also £29k cheaper at £96k, which is still a decent chunk of change, even at this end of the market. But saying that, the S-Coupe is what a flagship is all about: every conceivable piece of edge-cutting in a beautiful, slightly over-the-top format. It makes very little sense in practical terms, but is nonetheless a rather wonderful car.

Which leads me to the conclusion that nobody really needs a huge 2dr coupe with Swarovski crystals in the headlights, 582bhp and more computers than PC World, but as pointlessly brilliant things go, it doesn't get much better than this.