New twin‑turbo V12 monster Maybach

Just sitting there is likely to be the least of the new Maybach’s back-seat appeal. You can stretch out and have a kip here, flat-bed business class style. The new legrests will give your calves a massage as you gently nod off and there’s special heating for neck and shoulders.

Or use the rear compartment as a very well-connected office – this is a five-screen multiplex cinema of a car interior. Or entertain guests with a drink in the timber-lined rear section; there are silver-plated goblets onboard (Code B65 if you want to tick the options box) and the champers can be chilled to just the temperature (there’s a 10-litre fridge). Mood lighting and gentle music all provided.

It’s so big here social distancing would surely not even present a problem. The new Maybach’s wheelbase is 180mm longer than even the long wheelbase S-Class on which this car is based, and it all goes into rear seat legroom. The wheelbase is now 3,396mm – twice that of a Smart car’s – and overall length has grown to a whopping 5,469mm, more than its British rivals apart from the extended wheelbase Ghost.

The new flagship is an S-Class at heart of course – the days of truly bespoke Maybachs are long gone – but even so, fronted by a Maybach pinstriped grille and with the signature bonnet chrome fin and (optional) two-tone paint job, the new model comes across as machine with its own glamorous character. Enough anyway to make it stand out in the chairman’s slot in the car park, albeit with a slight echo of the Rover 75 in profile.

Apart from the extra length, unique Maybach body elements include wider rear doors and extra little rear quarterlight windows, ahead of a grand Maybach logo on the C-pillars. And yes you have this badge lit up, though, sorry, that’s one option not available for the UK market. The rear doors can be electrically opened and closed by the chauffeur.

You might think a car almost 5.5m (18ft) long might be a bit of a handful for the poor chauffeur but Mercedes has thought of this. The new Maybach is the first of its breed with (optional) rear-wheel steering. Two types are available: a 4.5-degree rear steer that drops the turning circle from 13.1m to 12.2m (for tighter London U-turns perhaps), and a more extreme 10-degree set-up that saves another metre on the turning circle and is probably the recommended choice for negotiating Cornish fishing villages.

All the very considerable new tech from the latest S-class is present and correct here, including digital lights, all the latest connectivity and networking features of the MBUX system, head-on airbags for the rear-seat passengers (among a total of 18 airbags in the car), and active air-sprung suspension that reads the road ahead for bumps adjusts damper rates accordingly.

Plus inevitably there is a slew of Drive Pilot assist features so the car can drive itself, as and when that is possible – the second half of 2021 on certain autobahn sections in Germany, believes Mercedes. Your chauffeur will still have to be sat there behind the wheel but he or she will be able to read the paper or surf the net while the Maybach barrels down the motorway.

The last Maybach S-class was quiet and the new one promises to be even quieter. For the first time in any Mercedes it comes with active road noise compensation, using counter-phased sound waves to cancel out low-frequency noises, as used by many companies these days. Other hushing techniques include tyres filled with sound absorbing foam.

With all this going on you’d hardly think it needed an engine but it does have one. The choice for UK buyers is believed to be between a 500PS 4.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V8 and a 610PS 6.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V12, both electrified with integrated starter generator. It’s thought a plug-in hybrid version will come later.

Since the Maybach S-class first appeared in 2015, more than 60,000 have been sold, though a lot of the buyers would have bought an S-Class anyway of course. Even so, the Maybach reborn as pinnacle model of the S-Class range seems to have struck a chord, especially in markets like China – which has recently been snapping them up at the rate of 700 every month, says Mercedes.

That means China comes before us in the delivery stakes, though this ultimate three-pointed star should arrive in UK showrooms by next summer, at prices to be confirmed. Should Rolls and Bentley worry? We suspect that might depend on whether you want to drive or be driven…