The extremely opulent interior is poles apart from the exterior’s subtle approach. There’s not a visible inch in the cabin which is not draped in high-gloss wood, top-quality leather or highlighted with brushed metal. It’s a well thought cabin and scores very high in terms of creature comfort. In fact, we could have printed a separate booklet explaining the zillion features and function of the S-Class. Our test vehicle came with beige coloured, perforated leather on the dash and seats, but if you like to underplay it, you have various options to customise the interior, including all-black. All the buttons and knobs have a solid feel and are beautifully built, while the smartly designed aircon vents and its buttons create a nice horizontal line on the dashboard. The cabin smells like an expensive fragrance: light and distinct.
A pair of high-resolution 12.3-inch TFT screens for the COMAND system are fixed on to the dashboard. One is dedicated to the driver, while the other serves as an infotainment screen. You get cool animation on the COMAND system and can control almost all the features from here. After the initial five minutes of excitement, it can get annoying to wait for the animated S-Class to spin on to the screen and then toggle through multiple sections each time you want to do something as simple as, say, switching off the aircon. Thankfully, you can create shortcuts for different commands on the tiny COMAND controller at the palm rest.
The interior is a real treat and the best of old-world charm and modern technology. The old-fashioned two-spoke multi-functional steering wheel makes a comeback and is wrapped in quality wood and leather. A made-in-Germany Burmester 3D audio system pumps out 1,540 watts of power via 24 speakers, including one on the ceiling, with bewitching sound clarity. Adding to the experience is the ambient lighting with seven colours and five dimming levels to choose from, which uses 300 light-emitting diodes (LED). The driver has about half a dozen cameras at his disposal that give a 360-degree view of the surroundings. You get Active Park Assist which, however, is not the best in the industry. There are eight airbags for all-round safety and a really large panoramic sunroof. The old-school Mercedes-Benz star reappears on the hood, and it’s a good thing as it helps you know exactly how far out the bonnet really is. You’d expect the boot of this mammoth car to be vast, but in India Mercedes have strapped a space saver (spare wheel) on to its floor which eats into the 530 litres of luggage capacity. Even the 11-litre refrigerator takes up quite a bit of the boot space.
More on page 3 >
