Mercedes-Benz S-Class

The ‘Best Car in the World’ just got a lot better

- Bertrand D’souza

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class has been around for seven generations. First named as the S-Class in the early 1970s, its DNA can be traced to almost two decades before its introduction. Ever since its debut in 1972, the S-Class has been a pioneer in the automotive industry. It led the way by enveloping ‘first in industry’ features; be it safety, comfort, convenience, technology, engineering, and design. The interesting bit is that the S-Class has been so ahead of its time, it used to take almost a decade before it got dated and a whole new S-Class was reborn. Consumer demands and fast-changing technology, however, changed all that and in the last couple of decades we have seen refreshes and updates flowing in in shorter intervals.

Now there is a new S-Class, a new generation of Mercedes’ flagship, and one that significantly broadens the goalposts. And it does this through significant revisions to the mechanical parts but more importantly with a host of features that brings in a whole new dimension to comfort, luxury, and entertainment through biometrics, digitisation and level 3 autonomy.

That said, there is a thing like too much technology. The S-Class can be overwhelming in that way, there is a useful technology that makes itself felt every day and certainly enhances your driving experience. Then there is the less useful stuff that either takes much too long to figure out or is simply not needed often enough. Then there is tech that works in ways so mysterious you just can’t figure it out, and some of it you simply don’t know exists.