The Vision Mercedes‑Maybach Ultimate Luxury does what it says on the tin

In designer-speak, two boxes are becoming three – well they are anyway in this vision of “Ultimate Luxury” dreamed up by Mercedes designers as a Maybach show-stopper for the Auto China motor show in Beijing which opens today (24 April).

Billed as a mix of high-end saloon and SUV, the show car features a fixed rear window and huge boot for a conventional, if what is today rare, notchback profile. That’s not so popular here anymore but they still love booted saloons in China. The result according to Mercedes design chief Gorden Wagener is an “ultra-modern SUV” and “a totally new archetype of a kind never seen before.”

The Vision Mercedes-Maybach Ultimate Luxury, to give it its full name, is all-wheel drive (via electric motors delivering 750 horsepower) and high-riding like an SUV, but for obvious reasons, it won’t be great in the “utility” stakes.

The people riding inside (it’s designed to be chauffeur-driven) are unlikely to be bothered about that. There's acres of space and an ebony wood, white leather, polished aluminium and rose-gold interior calculated to appeal to Chinese billionaires.

One thing we do approve of is Maybach’s take on a top person’s Teasmade in the back compartment. Forget the traditional cooled bubbly and champagne flutes, here you get a teapot and cups! The finest china teaser appears on a heated tray that slides out from inside a rear console.

Do not hold your breath for that, or indeed the rest of this flamboyant new interpretation of the vehicle type the world just can’t get enough of. But if you are dreaming of a Mercedes-Maybach SUV you are unlikely to be disappointed. That – a Maybach’ed version of the Merc GLS and thus nothing at all like this concept – is due to arrive later in the year.

Probably minus the teaser but definitely with a lift-up tailgate…