Mercedes-Benz S-Class S500 4Matic - long-term review

It finally happened. While dropping a family member outside Papworth hospital, an elderly gentleman extended a frail hand towards me and said, ‘ah, you must be my taxi driver'.

There’s no question I feel slightly fraudulent driving the S500. Almost all cars in this sector are bought and run by chauffeur companies or high-end private hire outfits. If I’m wearing a hoodie, jeans and trainers – which is 90 per cent of the time – I get some funny looks when I get out of the Mercedes’s driver’s door.

If I really was someone, surely I’d be decanting myself from the rear compartment? And I’m now too old to look as though I’ve borrowed my dad’s car.

But it’s useful training otherwise: a good chauffeur is a very good driver indeed, and the S500 is all about precisely engineered poise. Although it’s 5.3m long, has considerable reserves of power and can seriously hustle if hustling is called for, this is a car that prefers to stay in its – admittedly world class – lane.

It’s designed to reduce your heart rate rather than intensify it. And that’s a trait that’s worth its weight in gold, more than ever in these arduous times.

In fact, its AI can tell when the driver is under pressure or behaving erratically, prompting the car to recommend whichever of its on-board ‘well-being’ programmes is most appropriate. Paradoxically, this actually makes me more irritated, as is the case with any software – Spotify, social media, YouTube – that presumes to know what I want or might like.

You can probably guess my feelings about the S500’s self-driving capabilities, or how often I’ve used the Mercedes Me app to defrost it on an icy morning.

No, as unfashionable as this may sound, I actually and actively enjoy driving it. For some reason, its ride quality seems to have improved since it arrived in October: its primary ride has always been superb, but the low-speed brittleness that I detected over the numerous imperfections on our roads has mostly gone.

It’s still not Rolls-Royce Ghost good, but then few cars are (apart from the Rolls Phantom). Subjectively, I’d say it rivals the Rolls in terms of rolling refinement, and there’s negligible mechanical, tyre or wind noise on the move. Even with the brilliant Burmester audio at serious volume, the S500’s sense of calm pervades everything, and that tends to percolate into your whole being. Kind of a mobile luxury hotel and spa, then.