2021 Mercedes-Benz S580 review: The benchmark once again

Visualize the strain of generating a new Mercedes-Benz S-Course. This car is meant to be the peak of Everest for potential buyers who want a comprehensive-body fat luxurious car, and just about every successive technology really should incorporate far more to the pile without having forgetting its raison d’être, which indicates you can find a large amount riding on just about every new product. All that tough operate has compensated off, although, since the 2021 Mercedes-Benz S-Course is an complete banger, the moment once again location the common for all other luxurious cars.

The 2021 Mercedes-Benz S580 is damn around the excellent luxurious car, while styling is subjective, and I’ll be the 1st to admit that the hottest iteration of Mercedes’s design language is just not my preferred. My sole criticism is that the rear stop is Eeyore-tier droopy, with a chrome unibrow spanning the width of the trunk, which is my complete least preferred twenty first-century prosper.

The rest of the S580’s exterior is all about course. Inspite of donning the far more intense bumpers and aspect skirts of the $4,three hundred AMG Line package, my tester is however rather demure. The 21-inch AMG alloy wheels have a rather trad-luxe look to them, too. This car will not have to have outrageous angles or cut lines to make a statement — it is just a large, extravagant sedan, carving its way through targeted traffic with a thoroughly outdated-school hood ornament main the demand.

If for some purpose I really don’t feel like a million bucks strolling up to the Mercedes S580, I sure feel like it the moment the doorways open up — truly, no, prior to, thanks to electronic doorway handles that pop out from the human body as I approach. The S-Course has lengthy had  the plushest interiors in the car business, and that carries on with the 2021 product. The black Nappa leather is gentle, and not only are the front seats supportive as heck, on the S580 they appear common with an exceptional multi-contour massage function. The rear seats are roomier than prior to, with loads of headroom and legroom for me to splay out.

The S580’s inside design borrows closely from the Eyesight EQS strategy, with a large swath of wooden trim running the width of the dashboard, punctuated by pairs of vents on possibly aspect. The twelve.eight-inch OLED infotainment display rises up from the middle console, leaving enough area powering it for an additional storage tray. The protect beneath the display moves to expose two regular-sized cup holders, a wireless charging pad and an added tray for masks, keys or other pocket detritus. Underneath the armrest, you can find enough area for a small purse, whilst the doorway pockets are just large enough to hold some large consume containers. There’s no huge binnacle bordering the twelve.3-inch gauge exhibit, which indicates the dashboard stays good and small, generating for exceptional ahead visibility.

Plunk down an added $3,000 and the area in front of the gauges turns into a huge projector for just one very seriously amazing head-up exhibit. Not only will it supply the normal information and facts readouts like speed and route of travel, it can also operate with nearby car-to-infrastructure tech to exhibit the time remaining on a pink gentle. My preferred component, although, is the augmented-fact integration that the S-Course shares with its electric EQS sibling, displaying impending turns as arrows that develop nearer as the intersection does, as properly as highlighting targeted traffic when adaptive cruise manage is energetic. The information and facts is usually exactly where it requires to be, too, thanks to eye-monitoring cameras designed into the gauge exhibit, which can function in a trick 3D Method for a minimal added visible flair. Flipping through the lots of readily available layouts and menus is designed straightforward thanks to touchpad-model buttons on the steering wheel.

The large ol’ display in the middle of the S580 runs an current variation of the MBUX infotainment process we have observed in just about every other Merc, and it will work as properly as at any time in this iteration. It will run wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, but there are also four USB-C ports in the middle console for front-seat occupants to use. The touchscreen collects smudges like no other, but it is responsive, and it is rather darn amazing, too, specifically when it is running a fullscreen map. The bottom component of the exhibit usually displays local climate controls, with a smattering of actual physical buttons beneath that for switching driving modes, turning up the volume, engaging the hazard lights or looking through my fingerprint to pull up my own settings (not mandatory).

The only controls that frustrate me are identified overhead. This S580 has two sunroofs, just one for each row, and they are controlled with the most infuriating contact slider recognized to person. I expended an overall week seeking to figure out the logic powering how it will work, but no make any difference what instructions my fingers go, it does almost everything — opens and closes the front panel, tilts the front panel, engages the front panel’s sun shade — apart from the just one function I truly want it to. I despise it on the EQS, and I despise it listed here.

What is extremely hard to despise, although, is the 2021 Mercedes S580’s experience. It is, basically put, the very best in the section, with an adaptive air suspension that preternaturally eradicates nearly just about every inch of terrible street underfoot, sensation pillowy clean practically all the time. The S-Course floats down the street, and combined with thick glass, driver and travellers alike will be all but shut off from the entire world on the other aspect. The suspension lowers and stiffens when put into Activity or Activity Additionally mode, and whilst the S580 does a rather very good perception of a comprehensive-measurement activity sedan, I might recommend ready for an AMG variant if you really want to give it the ol’ what-for. This detail might corner properly, but what it really wants to do is luxuriate at all feasible possibilities.

The S580’s powertrain is good and clean. Underneath the hood is a 4.-liter twin-turbocharged V8 generating 496 horsepower and 516 pound-toes of torque, augmented by a forty eight-volt mild hybrid process that can toss another 21 hp and 184 lb-ft into the combine, normally when leaving a end or pushing the accelerator into the firewall. The V8 is loads strong on its individual, but with this bit of electrification, the S580 feels like it runs on a never-ending properly of motive power. A 9-speed automated transmission does its detail with around imperceptibility, and optional rear-axle steering (4.5 degrees, $one,three hundred, while ten-diploma steering is also readily available on some variants) indicates it is rather darn straightforward to navigate parking a lot and other limited confines. The EPA costs the S580 at 17 mpg metropolis and 25 mpg freeway, and whilst the metropolis estimate looks place on, I’m equipped to squeeze out anything nearer to thirty mpg on the freeway.

If a V6 feels like overkill in the twilight decades of the inside combustion engine, the S500 may scratch your itch, as an alternative. This product ditches two cylinders, opting for a turbocharged straight-6 generating 429 hp and 384 lb-ft. It, too, has the EQ Increase mild hybrid process, as properly as common all-wheel generate and the exact 9-speed automated. It really is a minimal far more economical, although, coming in at an EPA-estimated 20 mpg metropolis and 29 mpg freeway.

There are some very able driver aids ready to lend a hand. Conventional comprehensive-speed adaptive cruise manage combines efforts with lane-retaining support to hold the car centered in its lane at the rate of targeted traffic, getting rid of the tedium of longer commutes but however demanding fingers on the wheel and eyes pointed down the street. Whilst energetic, although, the driver aids make gentle inputs and hold the experience relaxed. For parking, the infotainment display can display a 360-diploma place about the car, which I can twist and spin on the display to make sure I’m keeping in all the lines. Parking sensors combine efforts with the ambient lights to give me an additional layer of warning in circumstance I get too close to a wall or another car.

It should not appear as a surprise that the 2021 Mercedes-Benz S-Course ain’t affordable. The S580 begins at $117,350, and a confined range of aesthetic and functional enhancements bump my tester’s cost up to $131,five hundred — and you can find however an AMG variant or two that will stay above this just one, in addition to the large-boy Maybach. The S500 and its straight-6 engine are fortunately a minimal fewer pricey, coming in at $110,850. Thank goodness.

Mercedes’ closest competition, the BMW 7 Collection and Audi A8, are both of those large-good quality luxurious cars in their individual ideal, but it is tough to recommend anything at all other than the S-Course. The common bearer continues to be at the front of the pack, and really should remain there for a whilst.