Pillarless doors and huge, 21-inch wheels, as well as an extended radiator grille add to the Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe Concept's imposing stance

 

Luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz has taken everything great about its standard range-topping four-door sedan and squeezed it into a sleek, two-door executive grand tourer.

Sleek, muscular and imposing in equal measure, Mercedes stresses that although this car is merely a concept, the design cues, flourishes and technology on display are all destined to make it onto upcoming cars.

Inside, the instrument panel has been shaped to reflect, in Mercedes' words, "a whale fluke just before it re-enters the water". Finished in white with milled aluminum switchgear, the effect is of flowing, unbroken lines and of space. Emphasising the aura of luxury are the calfskin upholstered seats and the hand-woven silk carpeting and roof liner while under the hood.

 

Inside, clarity and comfort are paramount. Reflective screens add tints of color that bounce off the hand-woven silk carpets and roof liner

 

But as well as luxury, the new car features a host of technology. Its Intelligent Drive system uses stereo cameras that can map a three-dimensional representation of the road ahead to alert the driver and can also detect and predict the position of objects around the car at any given moment up to a distance of 500 metres.

This technology is also tied into the suspension system so that it is always prepared to iron out kinks in the road ahead before the car encounters them, for the smoothest possible ride. Increasing the sense of well-being is an infotainment system that uses Gracenote technology and can therefore curate and play a track list based on the driver's mood and has a catalogue of over 18 million tracks to choose from.

Under the hood, there's a bi-turbo V8 that's been massaged and refined by AMG so that it puts out 455 hp and over 700Nm of torque, but the top speed remains a mystery. And although the S-Class is just a concept, Bentley, BMW and even Rolls-Royce should be more than a little worried.

 

 

Photos: Mercedes-Benz